“That was a revolt of deep thinkers against a service which has all the mechanical artifice of Romanism without its strong appeal to the heart and the senses—dry, empty, rigid—a repetition of vain phrases. If I am ever to bow my neck beneath the Church’s yoke, let me swallow the warm-blooded errors of Papacy rather than the heartless formalism of English Episcopacy.”
“But what can you or Fareham—or a few good men like you—do to change established things? Remember Venner’s plot, and how many lives were wasted on that foolish, futile attempt. You can only hazard your lives, die on the scaffold. Or would you like to see civil war again; the nation divided into opposite camps; Englishmen fighting with Englishmen? Can you forget that dreadful last year of the Rebellion? I was only a little child; but it is branded deep on my memory. Can you forget the murder of the King? He was murdered; let Mr. Milton defend the deed as he can with his riches of big words. I have wept over the royal martyr’s own account of his sufferings.”
“Over Dr. Gauden’s account, that is to say. ‘Eikon Basilike’ was no more written by Charles than by Cromwell. It was a doctored composition—a churchman’s spurious history, trumped up by Charles’s friends and partisans, possibly with the approval of the King himself. It is a fine piece of special pleading in a bad cause.”
“You make me hate you when you talk so slightingly of that so ill-used King. You will make me hate you more if you lead Fareham into danger by underhand work against the present King.”
“Lies Fareham’s safety so very near your heart?”
“It lies in my heart,” she answered, looking at him, and defying him with straight, clear gaze. “Is he not my sister’s husband, and to me as a brother? Do you expect me to be careless about his fate? I know you are leading him into danger. Some mischief must come of these visits to Mr. Milton, a Republican outlaw, who has escaped the penalty of his treasonous pamphlets only because he is blind and old and poor. I doubt there is danger in all such conferences. Fareham is at heart a Republican. It would need little persuasion to make him a traitor to the King.”
“You have it in your power to make me so much your slave, that I would sacrifice every patriotic aspiration at your bidding, Angela,” Denzil answered gravely.
“I know not if this be the time to speak, or if, after waiting more than a year, I may not even now be premature. Dearest girl, you know that I love you—that I haunt this house only because you live here; that I am in London only because my star shines there; that above all public interests you rule my life. I have exercised a prodigious patience, only because I have a prodigious resolution. Is it not time for me to reap my reward?”
“Oh, Denzil, you fill me with sorrow! Have I not said everything to discourage you?”
“And have I not refused to be discouraged? Angela, I am resolved to discover the reason of your coldness. Was there ever a young and lovely woman who shut love out of her heart? History has no record of such an one. I am of an appropriate age, of good birth and good means, not under-educated, not brutish, or of repulsive face and figure. If your heart is free I ought to be able to win it. If you will not favour my suit, it must be because there is some one else, some one who came before me, or who has crossed my path, and to whom your heart has been secretly given.”