The salutations were soon ended, and the company now being somewhat relieved from the awkward embarrassment which they had experienced while waiting for the appearance of those whom the occasion was to honor—for, in those days, society was much the same in that respect as at present, the company scattered, and gathered together in knots and groups, and discussed with great eagerness the engrossing topic of the trial. Conversation, however, flowed, not as it was wont, in its pleasant current, diverging here and there, as fancy or caprice suggested, but an appearance of gloom pervaded the whole intercourse; and although each individual appeared evidently to make an effort to relieve this feeling, the effort itself showed a consciousness of the constraint. It was not then the custom to deprive the groom and bride of each other’s society during the whole evening after the ceremony, but was rather the fashion to throw them together as much as possible—which must at least, in the case of all love-matches, have been more conformable with the inclinations, than that habit of scrupulously avoiding one another, now in vogue. Agreeably with this ordinary arrangement, Alice and Heath withdrew toward the close of the evening, without attracting observation, into an anteroom adjoining the main apartment. It had not escaped the notice of any, that notwithstanding the blissful occasion, the brow of Alice wore a cloud, if not actually of sorrow, at least of melancholy sadness. We may believe that this had attracted the especial notice of him who had that evening taken her happiness into his proper keeping. But his sympathetic heart rightly surmised its cause. “Thou art sad, my own Alice,” he said, “on this night, which I had fondly hoped would have made thee as supremely joyful as it does myself. You distress yourself on account of the king’s situation: is it not so?” “Not only on account of the king’s unhappy situation, but likewise because of the hand my father and thyself have had in it. I fear that his blood, if he be sentenced, as the rumor is, to-morrow, will be avenged upon the heads of those whom I love best on earth.” “But, Alice,” argued the husband, “he has merited, by his tyranny and treason, this trial, and in contemning the court, as he has done throughout in refusing to plead, he will likewise merit whatever sentence it may see fit, after examining the competent witnesses, to pass upon him. Besides, has not your father told you that this is the Lord’s cause, and that He calleth aloud from the throne of Heaven for the blood of Charles Stuart?”