Besides, he must stand by his crown ... but he would not stay at Hampton—his own enemy had warned him.
But where to go—in all my three realms where to go?
Several days he waited in his usual indecision, then, miserable, harassed, uncertain, torn by a thousand perplexities, he and his few companions crept one night down the back stairs, came out on to the riverside, and went forth aimlessly, with no plan nor purpose, with nothing but schemes as wild as will-o'-the-wisps to light the dimness and confusions of their future.
CHAPTER V
LIEUT.-GENERAL CROMWELL, REPUBLICAN
In a room of the house where Oliver Cromwell had moved his family from Ely, a mansion in Drury Lane, one of the least pretentious in that fashionable street, but stately and comfortable, two women were sitting over the ruddy fire which lit and cheered the close of the short winter day.
The contrast between them was as marked as any contrast could be, yet something in their personalities knit together and blended as if beneath their great differences there was an underlying likeness—the likeness of the same breed and birth.
The elder lady was towards the close of life—eighty, perhaps, or more; her face and person were delicate, her lap full of delicate embroidery, out of which her fine fingers drew a fine needle and thread.
She wore a grey tabinet gown; a white cap and white strings enclosed her fragile face, white linen enfolded her shoulders and bosom, and long white cuffs reached from her wrist to her elbow.