"Ah, I see! Had she remained with you and been wedded early to Lord Vere, she would have been saved from the influences which worked so strongly upon her—"
"Ay, and were the cause at last of her death, as well as the cause of my son's joining the rebels. His heart was not with the Duke of Monmouth, albeit his soul doubtless swelled within him at the tales of coward cruelty and tyranny which he heard of his Majesty. After all, good Sir Ralph, if you and I can foresee a day when perhaps some such struggle must again be fought, though with another and a more righteous and legitimate champion, ere this land can be freed from the curse of tyranny, can we blame so harshly the younger and more ardent souls who saw in this young Duke a champion of liberty and religion? Had all England known something more of the temper of the King and the nature of the tools he employed, and purposes yet more fully to employ, I sometimes wonder whether more of our class might not have joined issue with the Duke of Monmouth, in despair of ever serving such a monarch as the treacherous and unkingly James."
Sir Ralph Bridges bent his head with a look of sternness upon his face; and I hearing these words, marvelled at the change already creeping over the minds of the gentry, who but a short time back, in the hour of his peril, had rallied so gallantly round their monarch, even though for his own person they held but small love.
Surely the coward cruelty of the King and his officers had done much to estrange the hearts of his subjects from him.
Then, after a brief pause, Sir Ralph took up the thread of the discourse.
"And so you did truly love the poor maiden, who was said to drop down dead, or nigh to dead, at sight of Jeffreys' evil face? You would not have forbidden her union with your son had things turned out differently with both?"
"Had my son but been restored to me, he should have chosen his wife when and as he would. I would have never said him nay, never striven again to force my will upon his. But indeed I sometimes think that had he returned to find her dead, he would have never recovered the blow. His heart has been set on her ever since their childhood. I can see it now. Would to God I had never thwarted them! The load I have to bear about with me is well-nigh too heavy for me. The death of both lies at my door! I shall never see grandchildren sporting at my knees, and the fair mansion in Devonshire prepared for Vere and his bride will remain desolate and empty till it passes into the hands of aliens." And Lord Lonsdale's voice quivered as he spoke, and I thought that there was even a glint of tear-drops in his eyes.
At this moment Sir Ralph gave me a signal—the signal for which I had been anxiously waiting all through that long banquet.
Without a moment's delay I crossed the floor, then opened a pair of folding doors which shut off a smaller apartment within; and immediately there stepped forth, in all the bravery and beauty of their wedding garments, my lord the Viscount and his fair young wife, the latter so changed and transfigured by the few weeks of wedded happiness that I was startled by the wonderful radiancy of her beauty.