"Fond creature," replied Cromwell, "I am in covenant with the Lord, and I do the Lord's work, and your blasphemies do but waste the air."
"No! I am heard!" answered Lady Pawlet, to whom horror and wrath had given an exalted dignity and a desperate strength. "Man of blood and disloyalty, a scourge upon this land, a bitterness and a terror to these unhappy people!"
"Shall I take her away?" asked Gaveston, advancing.
"Nay," replied Cromwell, "let her speak. Words no more than swords touch those who wear the armour of the Lord. As for thee, vain, unhappy one, go and wrestle with the evil errors that hold thee, and pray that light be given to thy eternal darkness."
Lady Pawlet moved aside and pointed to her husband.
"He is dead," she said. "Only I know how good he was, how excellent and loyal—but he is dead in his early summer. And I, too, have lived my life."
"'Man is a thing of nought, he passeth away like a shadow,'" returned the Lieutenant-General sombrely. "We are but a little dust that the wind bloweth as it will."
"A brazen face and an iron hand!" cried Lady Pawlet wildly. "A wicked heart and a lying mouth! What has this unhappy England done that she cannot be delivered of thee?"
To the surprise of Sergeant Gaveston, Cromwell neither left the room nor ordered the removal of the frantic lady, but answered her earnestly, even passionately—
"Was it the Parliament first set up the standard of war? Nay, it was the King. Was it the Parliament that ever refused to come to an accommodation? Again the King. Was it the Parliament that roused the Highlands of Scotland to war? Nay, Montrose, the King's man. Was it the Parliament did command these horrid outrages in Ireland? Nay, Phelim O'Neil, the King's man. Therefore accuse us not of bloodshed, for we do but make a defence against violence and tyranny. We fight for God's people that they may have repose and blessing, and for this land that it may have liberty."