"Nay—do you take him for a disloyal wretch?" flashed the Marchioness.
"Then," replied Elisabeth, with something of her pride roused, "I wonder that you should have undertaken the labour of this journey."
A pallor overshadowed the royalist lady's features, and she hung her head, as if she heard in these words the full extent of her miseries and the depths of her humiliations.
"Could you see how the exiles live in Paris, in Rotterdam—in Antwerp," she answered—"all of us—even the Queen—you would not wonder at my endeavour, however foolish, to obtain some relief."
It was the Protector's daughter who paled now; the thought of the English exiles wandering miserably through Europe had constantly haunted her.
"You are then in distress?" she asked, in a low voice.
"In the greatest poverty," replied Lady Newcastle, her pride melting before the touch of tenderness, and the tears suddenly reddening her eyes. "The French King makes nothing of us; he is all for an alliance with the usur—with your father. The Princess of Orange can do nothing for us, for, since her husband died, the Netherlands have put down her son and so—and so——" she paused to command herself, then continued: "Do not think I complain for myself. My lord was ruined when I married him in Paris. I took him for great and exceeding love, as he did me, seeing I was dowerless, and I make it no hardship to share his exiled wanderings with him—but there are so many others even wanting bread—and Her Majesty and the Princess Henrietta are in such distress——But not to you should I speak of these things. I would only explain how it is that I have so far lowered my dignity as to come here on this errand."
Elisabeth Claypole caught a glimpse of the sufferings, poverties, and misery of the exiled English in this speech, given so humbly, so haltingly, yet with the accent of a pride unquenched.
My lady dashed the tears from her eyes with a laced handkerchief.
"I am Margaret Lucas," she added, "and well used to misfortunes. I came to England to try what I could do, but I found no friend anywhere, nor any one who would bring me before your father. So I came to-day—wildly and foolishly, it might be—to ask if he would give my lord his rights."