But hardly were the words uttered when two or three men came quickly across, and one of them taught hold of the apparently elder woman's arm, exclaiming, with a mocking laugh--"You are a tall lady, upon my soul, to walk upon Tower Hill of a night! Gadzooks, we must see more of your ladyship!"
Another man--who subsequently turned out to be a messenger sent in pursuit--at the same moment seized the young Earl (for I need hardly say it was he) with a hard strong grasp, exclaiming--"Henry, Earl of Eskdale, I charge you, in the King's name, to make no resistance."
With a faint despairing cry Emmeline sank to the ground, while they dragged Smeaton away from her side. The two servants, running up, demanded--"Who are you who dare to stop these ladies?" and angry words began to pass; but Smeaton interposed, saying--"It is in vain, it is in vain. Look to your lady, my good men. Convey her home safely. God bless you, my Emmeline!"
"What is the matter, what is the matter here?" cried Richard Newark, suddenly appearing with two or three more, while the man who had first seized upon Smeaton left him in the hands of the messenger, and raised Emmeline from the ground.
"Ah, Master Dick!" he exclaimed, "have you a finger in this pretty pie? Better put yourself out of harm's way, young man, as fast as possible."
"How dare you touch that lady, scoundrel?" demanded Richard, in a voice furious with passion, as he recognised the person of William Newark. "Take that for your pains!" And, holding the scabbard of his sword with his left hand, he struck his cousin a furious blow with the right.
William Newark started forward and drew his sword; Richard's was not long in the sheath; but the servants interposed, and parted them for the time, though not till words had been spoken--some in loud anger, some in the low tones of intense hate--which bore their fruit soon after. The last four of those words were uttered in a whisper.
"At seven, and alone," said Richard, in his cousin's ear.
The other nodded his head, and turned sullenly away, while Richard aided to raise the unhappy girl, whose last hope had been extinguished by her husband's recapture, and carried her, still insensible, to her dwelling.
In the mean time, the messenger and two of his men conducted their prisoner back to the gates of the Tower with feelings in the bosom of Smeaton too dark, too painful, for description. To his own fate his mind had been long made up, and the extinction of a brief hope of escape added little to the load he had to bear; but the thought of what might befall Emmeline in consequence of her effort to save him, and of the certain consequences to the devoted woman who had placed her liberty and even her life in peril for him, was too heavy to be borne with anything like calmness.