"My child, my child! would to God I could save your lover. You are dearer to me than all the world beside. Do not spurn your father's arms. His breast is your rightful place for comfort now."
She suffered him to clasp her in his embrace. "I will be brave," she whispered, looking up into his eyes. "Kiss me; I will be brave, and—and when he dies let me die, too."
"My child!" murmured Lincoln again, and there was terror as well as pity in his tone. He held her close, and her head rested on his shoulder. "All may yet be well, my dear one," he said tenderly.
Before daybreak the next morning a stream of people was pouring up from the city and winding its way through Cheapside and Fleet Street and the Strand to the judgment hall in the Houses of Parliament. By the time the guard from the Tower reached Westminster, vast multitudes lined the sidewalks and formed so dense a mass in the square in front of the gates that progress was well-nigh impossible. The populace was orderly, however, and fell back before the horses of a troop of cavalry, with no further demonstration than a sullen murmur.
The prisoners were brought before the bar of the Commons, and the Upper House entered immediately after to take their seats. It was an impressive scene. One might have heard a pin drop as the officer of the Crown rose to read the indictment, and again when, as he sat down, the hoarse voice of the clerk called out the names of the accused, shorn of all titles, to rise and answer to the charge of high treason against the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland.
"What say you, John Dacre—guilty or not guilty?"
Dacre's glance moved gravely around the vast hall and met the gaze of a thousand eyes without flinching. Fate willed that it should distinguish a pale, lovely face amid the press that lined the galleries, and linger thereon a moment as though loath to turn aside; but even while he gazed, the drapery and shoulder of another woman were interposed between his sight and the delicate features of Mary Lincoln, and shut her from his view. "What say you, Geoffrey Ripon? Are you guilty or not guilty?"
It was these words that had caused the stranger to lean forward and crane her neck—a beautiful neck that, muffled as she was, did not wholly escape the admiration of her neighbors. Her eyes sparkled with a light cold and malicious as the gleam which emanates from a blade of steel. As the lips of young Geoffrey Ripon flung back a clear denial of the charge, a hope was in his heart that the sweet maiden of his fancy might be among the hundreds looking down. She was not there, but her rival, Mrs. Oswald Carey, sat and watched each shade of his expression.
And now the witnesses were summoned and confronted the prisoners. The proofs were ample and overwhelming. It almost seemed mistrusting the intelligence of the judges to dwell upon the evidence, to quote the opening words of the attorney-general, and as a consequence the argument of that official was a model of conciseness. Then the time was come for the defendants' counsel. Mr. Benjamin arose and spoke for an hour. His speech was painstaking, but not particularly impressive. In conclusion he said that rebellion had often been punished before without the shedding of blood. He instanced Jefferson Davis, the great Secessionist, and the clemency of the American people. Mr. McPherson in reply adduced the Irish rebels executed by the government of Victoria, and thereat a shout arose which shook the walls of Parliament and was echoed by the crowd outside. Even the prisoners glanced at each other with downcast looks. The perspiration stood out in beads on the bald head of the Duke of Bayswater.