She was too deeply agitated for courtly ceremony; and gliding in, she approached the Princess as she sat reading, and knelt on the cushion at her feet.
"What is it, my poor Lucy?" said the Princess, bending down her head, and kissing her fair forehead, with a look of tender compassion; "there seems some happiness mingled with the sorrow of your look."
"'Tis that I have hope!" replied Lucy; and with rapid but with low words she related all that had passed between her brother and herself. She then put the packet into Eleanor's hands, saying, "It will prove his innocence, I am sure; but the Prince is absent, and I am afraid you will not open it."
"Nay," answered Eleanor, "I must not venture on such an act as that. I am only bold where it is to show my love for him, but not to meddle in matters of which he alone can judge. Neither is there occasion here, my Lucy; he will be back ere long."
"But Alured thought not," replied her fair companion. "He had heard that the Prince's journey from Leicester was put off till to-morrow morning!"
"Not so, not so!" cried the Princess; "'twas but delayed for an hour or two, and he sent lest I should fear the rebels had detained him. I expect him each minute, Lucy. But in the meantime, tell me more clearly what caused that look of joy just now?"
Lucy hesitated. "'Twas that a hope has crossed my mind," she said--"a hope that I might yet save them both; and surely, lady," she continued, raising her soft, dark eyes to Eleanor's face--"and surely to save both the life of a brother and a lover; to spare them deeds that can never be atoned; to shield Alured, not only from Monthermer's lance, but from the more terrible fate of going to his God with a false charge upon his lips--a charge which he knows to be false,--a woman may well put on a boldness she would otherwise shrink from--ay, and do things which maiden modesty would forbid, were not the cause so great and overpowering."
"Certainly," rejoined Eleanor, "so long as virtue and religion say not nay."
"God forbid that I should sin against either!" replied Lucy, eagerly. "That could never be, lady--But there be small forms, and prudent cautions, reserves, and cold proprieties, which, in the ordinary intercourse of life, are near akin to virtues, though separate. These surely may be laid aside, when the matter is to rescue from crime, from death, or from disgrace, beings so much beloved as these?"
"Assuredly!" exclaimed Eleanor, "who can doubt it? To save my Edward, what should stand in my way? Nothing but that honour which I know he values more than all earthly things, or even life itself."