"Every Catholic who showeth his face is insulted, and a beadle hath been killed for endeavouring to defend a Romist chapel—the people are up at last."
"I know," she answered calmly. "I feared that my lord would not be safe returning from Whitehall."
"If they had seen him, by Heaven, he would not have been!" said Mr. Sidney. He spoke as if he understood the people's point of view. Lax and careless as he was himself, Sunderland's open and shameless apostasy roused in his mind some faint shadow of the universal hatred and scorn that all England poured on the renegade.
My lady read him perfectly; she smiled.
"How are you going to use this temper in the people?" she asked. "Is it to die out with the flames that consume the straw Popes, or is it to swell to something that may change the face of Europe?"
Mr. Sidney rose as if his restless mood could not endure his body to sit still.
"It may change the dynasty of England," he said.
My lady kept her great eyes fixed on him.
"You think so?" she responded softly.
His blonde face was strengthened into a look of resolve and triumph.