"Jamie, Jamie," she cried piteously, "if they were to take you from me, I think that I should die!"
He put his arm about her, and they stood together, looking out of the window, thinking and pondering deeply.
"But, sister, you would have to learn to live without me if I were to escape this thraldom, and win my liberty. Could you bear to let me go for that?"
A little tremor ran through the girl's slight frame. She was very frail and delicate, this gentle, young Elizabeth; little fit to bear the buffets of outrageous fortune, to stand alone in her strange captivity; cut off from father, mother, friends, and kindred, and beset with so many cruel anxieties and fears on behalf of those she loved best. Her greatest solace in these sorrowful days was the companionship of her brother James, who, being a year or more her senior, and endowed with robust health, seemed like a tower of strength to the frail girl, hardly more than a child in years, though misfortune had given a strange maturity to her mind and disposition. It could not but be a dismal thought to lose the constant companionship of this brother, to send him forth into the perils of the great world without, where so many foes awaited him. She might well have sought to keep him beside her, fearing the perils of any project of escape; but despite her natural fears and shrinkings, and the delicacy of her frame, the spirit of kings and warriors was within her, and that spirit rose to meet the sacrifice which might be required of her.
"I would bear to let you go for that, Jamie," she answered. "But it would break my heart were you taken from me to be immured within the walls of the Tower."
"It may come to that one of these days," said James, "if I be not able to effect my escape. I cannot show the patience that you are able to command; and I am not a child like Harry, there, of whose words and acts no special note is taken. And did not our father bid me use every effort to regain my liberty, and reach the side of our mother and brother? It may be that already they are planning how to invade these shores, summon all loyal hearts to join them, and set my father on the throne once more! Oh! if such a thing were to happen, I must be there to help."
His eyes kindled, his frame seemed to expand and grow tense; and an answering thrill ran through that of the young Princess.
"Ah, Jamie, Jamie, if only it might be!" she cried.