"I crave your pardon, Lady," said Burrell, without altering his tone; "but do not thus alarm yourself: my sword shall not again be drawn upon a low and confirmed malignant. Sir," turning from his opponent and addressing the stranger, "heard you not how he applied the forbidden title of majesty to the man Charles Stuart; shall I not forthwith arrest him for high treason?—runneth not the act so, formed for the renouncing and disannulling of the pretended title of the late man's progeny?"
"Perish such acts and their devisers!" shouted the Cavalier, losing all prudence in the excitement of the moment. "Let the lady retire, while we end this quarrel as becomes men!"
"Heed him not, heed him not, I implore, I entreat you!" exclaimed Constance, sinking to the earth at the feet of Major Wellmore, by whom the hint of Burrell was apparently unnoticed; "the lion takes not advantage of the deer caught in the hunter's toils, and he is distraught, I know he is!"
"I am not distraught, Miss Cecil, though I have suffered enough to make me so: what care I for acts formed by a pack of regicides!"
"Young man," interrupted the old officer with a burst of fierce and strong passion that, like a mountain torrent, carried all before it, "I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth and its Protector! A night in one of the lone chambers of Cecil Place will cool the bravo-blood that riots in your veins, and teach you prudence, if the Lord denies you grace."
He laid his hand so heavily on De Guerre's shoulder, that his frame quailed beneath its weight, while the point of his sword rested on the peaceful grass. Burrell attempted, at the same instant, to steal the weapon from his hand: the Cavalier grasped it firmly; while Major Wellmore, darting on the false knight a withering look, emphatically observed, and with a total change of manner,—
"I can, methinks, make good a capture without your aid, kind sir; although I fully appreciate your zeal in the cause of the Commonwealth!" The latter part of the sentence was pronounced with a slow and ironical emphasis; then, turning to De Guerre, he added, "I need not say to you that, being under arrest, your sword remains with me."
De Guerre presented it in silence; for the result of his interview with Constantia had rendered him indifferent to his fate, and, although but an hour before it would have been only with his life that his sword had been relinquished, he now cared not for the loss of either.
Major Wellmore took the weapon, and appeared for a moment to consider whether he should retain it or not: he decided on the former, and in a cold, calm voice commanded his prisoner to move forward. De Guerre pointed to Constantia, who had neither shrieked nor fainted, but stood a mute statue of despair in the clear light of the young spring moon, whose early and resplendent beams fell in a silver shower on her bared and beautiful head.
"I will take care of Mistress Cecil," said the insidious Burrell.