“There are some words that must needs be spoken before we are agreed,” Angela said, when they found themselves alone for the first time, in the garden, on the morning after his return, and when Denzil would fain have taken her to his breast and ratified their betrothal with a kiss. “I think you know as well as I do that it is my father’s wish that has made me change.”
“So long as you change not again, dear, I am of all men the happiest. Yes, I know ’tis Sir John’s wooing that won you, not mine. And that I have still to conquer your heart, though your hand is promised me. Yet I do not despair of being loved in as full measure as I love. My faith is strong in the power of an honest affection.”
“You may at least be sure of my honesty. I profess nothing but the desire to be your true and obedient wife——”
“Obedient! You shall be my empress.”
“No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to make my father happy, and you too, sir, if I can.”
“Ah, my soul, that is so easy for you. You have but to let me live in your dear company. I doubt I would rather be miserable with you than happy with any other woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and I will be more submissive than Socrates. But you are all mildness—perfect Christian, perfect woman. You cannot miss being perfect as wife—and——”
Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked himself lest he should offend, and the speech ended in a sob.
“My Angela, my angel!”
He took her to his heart, and kissed the fair brow, cold under his passionate kisses. That word “angel” turned her to ice. It conjured back the sound of a voice that it was sin to remember. Fareham had called her so; not once, but many times, in their placid days of friendship, before the fiery breath of passion had withered all the flowers in her earthly paradise—before the knowledge of evil had clouded the brightness of the world.
A gentle peace reigned at the Manor after Angela’s betrothal. Sir John was happier than he had been since the days of his youth, before the coming of that cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, when John Hampden’s stubborn resistance of a thirty-shilling rate had brought Crown and People face to face upon the burning question of Ship-money, and kindled the fire that was to devour England. From the hour he left his young wife to follow the King to Yorkshire Sir John’s existence had known little of rest or of comfort, or even of glory. He had fought on the losing side, and had missed the fame of those who fell and took the rank of heroes by an untimely death. Hardship and danger, wounds and sickness, straitened means and scanty fare, had been his portion for three bitter years; and then had come a period of patient service, of schemes and intrigues foredoomed to failure; of going to and fro, from Jersey to Paris, from Paris to Ireland, from Ireland to Cornwall, journeying hither and thither at the behest of a shifty, irresolute man, or a passionate, imprudent woman, as the case might be; now from the King to the Queen, now from the Queen to this or that ally; futile errands, unskilful combinations, failure on every hand, till the last fatal journey, on which he was an unwilling attendant, the flight from Hampton Court to Titchfield, when the fated King broke faith with his enemies in an unfinished negotiation.