"The maid's father, and he that should have been her husband, were taken in one day. When those two years were run out, her father lay hidden away, having 'scaped from prison, until he might safely be holpen out of the country over seas: and the young man was a captive in Exeter Castle, and in daily expectation of death." "Good lack!" "And two years thereafter, the young man was had away from Exeter unto Woburn, and there set in the dread prison called Little Ease, shaped like to a funnel, wherein a man might neither stand, nor sit, nor lie, nor kneel." "O Mistress Tremayne! Heard any ever the like! And what came of the maiden, poor soul?" The needlework in Mrs Tremayne's hand was still now; and if any one had been present who had known her thirty years before, he would have said that a shadow of her old look at that terrible time had come back to her deep sweet eyes. "My child, God allowed her to be brought very low. At the first, she was upheld mightily by His consolations: and they that saw her said how well she bare it. But 'tis not alway the first blush of a sorrow that trieth the heart most sorely. And there came after this a time--when it was an old tale to them that knew her, and their comforting was given over,--a day came when all failed her. Nay, I should have said rather, all seemed to fail her. God failed her not; but her eyes were holden, and she saw Him not beside her. It was darkness, an horror of great darkness, that fell upon her. The Devil came close enough; he was very busy with her. Was there any hope? quoth he. Nay, none, or but very little. Then of what worth were God's promises to hear and deliver? He had passed His word, and He kept it not. Was God able to help?--was He true to His promise?--go to, was there any God in Heaven at all? And so, Blanche, she was tossed to and fro on the swelling billows, now up, seeing a faint ray of light, now down, in the depth of the darkness: yet, through all, with an half-palsied grasp, so to speak, upon the hem of Christ's garment, a groping after Him with numb hands that scarce felt whether they held or no. O Blanche, it was like the plague in the land of Egypt--it was darkness that might be felt!" Blanche listened in awed interest. "Dear heart, the Lord hath passed word to help His people in their need; but He saith not any where that He will alway help them right as they would have it. We be prone to think there is but one fashion of help, and that if we be not holpen after our own manner, we be not holpen at all. Yet, if thou take a penny from a poor beggar, and give him in the stead thereof an angel [half-sovereign], thou hast given him alms, though he have lost the penny. Alas, for us poor beggars! we fall to weeping o'er our penny till our eyes be too dim with tears to see the gold of God's alms. Dear Blanche, I would not have thee miss the gold." "I scantly conceive your meaning, dear Mistress."