"But, Mistress Constance," she said, when we had returned to the saloon, "I may not send her to such poor men, and above all, priests, who be in prison for their faith, as I hear, to my great sorrow, there be so many at this time, and who suffer great hardships, more than can be easily believed, for she is Protestant, and not through conforming to the times, but so settled in her way of thinking, and earnest therein, having been brought up to it, that she would not so much as open a Catholic book or listen to a word in defence of papists."
"But how, then, doth she serve a Catholic lady?" I asked, with a beating heart; and oh, with what a sad one did hear her answer, for it was as follows:
"Dear Constance, I must needs obey those who have a right to command me, such as his grace my good father and my husband; and they are both very urgent and resolved that by all means I shall conform to the times. So I do go to Protestant service; but I use at home my prayers, as my grandmother did teach me; and Phil says them too, when I can get him to say any."
"Then you do not hear mass," I said, sorrowfully, "or confess your sins to a priest?"
"No," she answered, in a sad manner; "I once asked my Lady Lumley, who is a good Catholic, if she could procure I should see a priest with that intent at Arundel House; but she turned pale as a sheet, and said that to get any one to be reconciled who had once conformed to the Protestant religion, was to run danger of death; and albeit for her own part she would not refuse to die for so good a cause, she dared not bring her father's gray hairs to the block."
As we were holding this discourse—and she so intent in speaking, and I in listening, that we had not heard the door open—Lord Surrey suddenly stood before us. His height made him more than a boy, and his face would not allow him a man; for the rest, he was well-proportioned, and did all things with so notable a grace, that nature had stamped him with the mark of true nobility. He made a slight obeisance to me, and I noticed that his cheek was flushed, and that he grasped the handle of his sword with an anger which took not away the sweetness of his countenance, but gave it an amiable sort of fierceness. Then, as if unable to restrain himself, he burst forth,
"Nan, an order is come for his grace to be forthwith removed to the Tower, and I'll warrant that was the cause he was suffered to see us yesterday. God send it prove not a final parting!"
"Is his grace gone?" cried the countess, starting to her feet, and clasping her hands with a sorrowful gesture.
"He goes even now," answered the earl; and both went to the window, whence they could see the coach in which the duke was for the third time carried from his home to the last lodging he was to have on this earth. Oh, what a sorrowful sight it was for those young eyes which gazed on the sad removal of the sole parent both had left! How her tears did flow silently like a stream from a deep fount, and his with wild bursts of grief, like the gushings of a torrent over rocks! His head fell on her shoulder, and as she threw her arms round him, her tears wetted his hair. Methought then that in the pensive tenderness of her downcast face there was somewhat of motherly as well as of wifely affection. She put her arm in his, and led him from the room; and I remained alone for a short time entertaining myself with sad thoughts anent these two young noble creatures, who at so early an age had become acquainted with so much sorrow, and hoping that the darkness which did beset the morning of their lives might prove but as the clouds which at times deface the sky before a brilliant sunshine doth take possession of it, and dislodge these deceitful harbingers, which do but heighten in the end by contrast the resplendency they did threaten to obscure.