“Are we then so much estranged, my dearest Alice?” he said.
“We will speak of that presently,” she replied. “In the first place, let me ask the cause of your visit here at so late an hour.”
“You heard,” said Everard, “what I stated to your father?”
“I did; but that seems to have been only part of your errand—something there seemed to be which applied particularly to me.”
“It was a fancy—a strange mistake,” answered Everard. “May I ask if you have been abroad this evening?”
“Certainly not,” she replied. “I have small temptation to wander from my present home, poor as it is; and whilst here, I have important duties to discharge. But why does Colonel Everard ask so strange a question?”
“Tell me in turn, why your cousin Markham has lost the name of friendship and kindred, and even of some nearer feeling, and then I will answer you, Alice?”
“It is soon answered,” she said. “When you drew your sword against my father’s cause—almost against his person—I studied, more than I should have done, to find excuse for you. I knew, that is, I thought I knew your high feelings of public duty—I knew the opinions in which you had been bred up; and I said, I will not, even for this, cast him off—he opposes his King because he is loyal to his country. You endeavoured to avert the great and concluding tragedy of the 30th of January; and it confirmed me in my opinion, that Markham Everard might be misled, but could not be base or selfish.”
“And what has changed your opinion, Alice? or who dare,” said Everard, reddening, “attach such epithets to the name of Markham Everard?”
“I am no subject,” she said, “for exercising your valour, Colonel Everard, nor do I mean to offend. But you will find enough of others who will avow, that Colonel Everard is truckling to the usurper Cromwell, and that all his fair pretexts of forwarding his country’s liberties, are but a screen for driving a bargain with the successful encroacher, and obtaining the best terms he can for himself and his family.”