"God is neither in statutes nor in churches," replied Cromwell, "but in the innermost recesses of the spirits and the secret depths of the heart, and these sanctuaries have you polluted and defiled, with tyranny and falseness and sly and untruthful dealing."
He took a step towards the door; a sudden weariness seemed to have overtaken him, or a wave of the weakness from his recent illness; he looked, in his dusty clothes, like a rider beaten with fatigue, a traveller exhausted after a long journey, his chin sank on his linen collar; his broad shoulders were bowed, and his step was at once heavy and uncertain.
Charles remained white, rigid in pose and expression as when Cromwell entered the chamber; the shadows were swiftly closing round them and all sharp lines and fine colours were blurred; through the one open window a breeze came, which lightly stirred the dusty tapestry and shook it in faint ripples from top to bottom.
The disused, unfurnished chamber, built for pomp and magnificence, was unutterably mournful and dreary, a fitting setting for the unfortunate King whose black figure was lost in, and one with, the ancient arras.
When he had reached the door, Cromwell turned and spoke again.
"Thou hast, sir, lost as good a chance as we are ever like to get of a fair settlement, and lost it through falseness and folly." He spoke with passion, but it was a passion of regret, not of vexation or wrath. "A good night."
The King, without turning his head or moving, stood as if he dismissed an unwelcome suitor from an audience, he showed an indifference that was stronger than contempt and an insulting coolness and absence of passion.
So, with no other word on either side, they parted, and Oliver rode back to Putney, weary with disappointment and chagrin, though his inmost prescience knew, and had known, that this disappointment and chagrin had been from the first foredoomed, that in ever dealing with the King at all he had been preparing the failure that had disclosed itself to-night; as he reflected on the whole business, his stern common sense laughed at the idealism which had led him astray; how could he have ever hoped to have clipped a king to his pattern out of Charles?
The delusion was over; he asked himself, as he rode through the fresh autumn twilight, what was to take its place?