"How many sad women I have seen!" exclaimed Margaret. "The Queen—you would not know her—an old woman, all burnt away with fiery tears; Lady Strafford, all broken and silenced; Lady William Pawlet, who hath crept into a convent and is as near a nun as a widow may be—and myself—how I have wept—mine eyes are weakened for ever because of tears. It was for Charles, my dear, dear brother ... you know they shot him, poor gallant soldier, outside Colchester.... Your father was guiltless of that, or nothing had brought me here to-day."
Elisabeth did not answer; Cromwell was certainly not responsible for the military executions, so harsh and unnecessary, of Lucas and Lisle after the siege of Colchester; but it had been the work of Bridget's first husband, Henry Ireton (a man whom she had never liked), and so she could not condemn the action though her heart cried out against it. The Marchioness rose, and the gentle April sunlight flicked the scoured silk, the darned lace, the face so peaked and worn for one so young.
"Well, well," she said, with quivering lips, "one goes on living—but the world is never the same after these things have happened. How differently I dreamed it would be!"
"I also," answered Elisabeth Claypole. "I never thought of death at all. Far, far off I fancied him, and behold, he was knocking at the door. But the world does not heed poor silly women, madam; we are but the dust bruised by the tramplings of great events; nations march past and leave us weeping. God send you a good deliverance from your sorrows. I will do what little I can, and ask my father to receive your petition, but well I know it hopeless."
"I thank you," said Margaret; "from my heart I thank you for your good, your generous, graciousness. I cannot think of you as my enemy——"
"Why should you?" cried Elisabeth. "We are both English women. I hope the day is near when all such shall be united."
She rose and unlatched the lattice, and a fresh air blew in from the young leaves that quivered on the willows and the young grass that waved in the fields.
"The river!" said Margaret, looking over her shoulder. "I often dream of the river, it seems woven through everything—twisted in and out of the past years and all their story. In Paris, among strangers, I think of the river, and grow sad with home-sickness. The river is very dear—and means so much."
"I think so too," said Elisabeth. "Consider how it will flow on the same, hundreds of years hence, when all the present kingdoms of the earth will be dust like yester year's roses."