A page stood near the door, as if waiting for some reply, now fixing his eyes upon the ground, now stealing a furtive glance at the pretty faces bending over their embroidery. To him Eleanor now beckoned, saying, "Come hither; take the letter back to my dear lord, and say I thank him for the sight of it. Tell him I would fain speak with him when his leisure serves; and that I beseech him, when the Lady Lucy comes, to send her to me, that I may accompany her to the presence of the king. She will need a friend beside her."
The boy took the letter, bowed, and retired; and Eleanor resumed her work, pausing, from time to time, as if to think, and then busying her hands again, though her mind went on with other things. In about a quarter of an hour the door opened, and Edward entered, with a brow somewhat sad and gloomy. Nor did that expression altogether pass away, though the accustomed smile cheered it for a moment, as he met her whom he so deeply loved.
"She cannot be long," he said, after a few words of greeting. "This is a strange as well as a dark affair."
"But you do not think him guilty?" demanded Eleanor.
"Assuredly not," replied the Prince; "but it has so happened--all has been so arranged, that I fear he will seem guilty though he be not. You read that letter, and you saw how easily he explained all that appeared suspicious in his former conduct; and yet a body of barons, Mortimer amongst the rest, were ready enough to urge my father to put him to death, without those forms and circumstances of customary law which are the only safeguards of men's liberty."
"Do you think they would have executed him?" demanded Eleanor.
"They would have murdered him," replied the Prince, "for such a death without law is murder."
Eleanor put her hands before her eyes, and after a moment's pause, added, "And yet he was innocent, clearly innocent--oh! I never doubted it, Edward! I have seen him, when you knew it not, gaze upon the countenance of my noble prince; and in his face, as in a moving picture, rise up a thousand images of kindly thoughts within;--affection, gratitude, esteem, and admiration; and I could have sworn that he would never plot against your father's throne, however reckless be the men of this world, of faith and honesty."
"I was sure also," answered Edward, "for I know him well, and am convinced that when, with a mistaken zeal, he was once found in arms against us, 'twas that he thought duty and honour called him to do that which wounded his own heart even in the doing.--But 'twas not alone that conviction which made me think the late accusation false," he continued, in a lower tone, that the women near might not catch his words--"I knew the men who made it, Eleanor: I knew Mortimer to be cruel and treacherous; I knew Pembroke to be cold, and hard, and selfish. And now I find," he added, with a smile, "they were to divide his lands between them. Here was Guy de Margan, too--a thing so light and frail, one would scarce think that such a delicate vessel could hold strong passions and fierce hatreds; yet 'tis evident to me that there was no slight rancour there."
"Oh! I know, I know!" replied Eleanor. "One night, when Lucy and her lover--with my connivance, I will own--walked by the moonlight under the southern cloisters at Eltham, this Guy de Margan, with some three or four other young idlers of the court, would have stopped her by force as she was returning to me, when the knight, whom she had just left, came up, and felled him with a blow. But hark! she is coming, Edward. See if that be the Lady Lucy, Alice."