“Whose life, love? Whose?” “The queen’s; she was the queen.” “The queen!” “A moment more, and she would have been doomed to the scaffold.” “Then--then thou dost love me?” “Art thou not in my arms? Doth not my heart tell thee how I love thee? I would rather die than part from thee. Each waking moment since we parted I have thought of Elvira, and dreamt of her each minute that I slept; and when I was on the sea, I said my love was as boundless as the waves.” “I am dying with joy--dying; and yet--yet I am afraid; I am quite afraid. Put your hand upon my heart. Now, _doth_ it beat?” As she laid his hand upon her breast, there was heard the sound of a drum-roll. Immediately it destroyed the partial sense with which she had been blessed while speaking to her lover. “Hark!” she said, hurriedly and terribly, “I know the sound, but now I fear it no longer. Yes, I tore her veil from off her head, and trampled on it. I did--I did. And--and thou wilt not leave me?” “Great powers?” he cried, looking into her dreamy eyes; and in a great whirl of fear, he fell back from her. There came floating on the air the exchange of the watchword, “England and Cromwell.” “Come,” he said, moving towards the house: “let us go in.” Then she was seized with a violent paroxysm. Calling out that he wished to leave her--to go back to her for whom she had been deserted. She poured forth shriek upon shriek till the air was all astir. Alarmed at the sudden discovery he had made, he tried to fly from her, but she clung to him--still shrieking that he would leave her, and that he was going to the woman with whom he had fled. “Be silent.” “He would fly me--” “Oh--be silent.” “Help--help--for pity’s sake!” “Ah!” Then came the alarmed puritans, running in from all sides. From the house--from the garden--over the walls they streamed--nearer and nearer, till they surrounded the lover and his mad bride. While he, all his fear merged in overwhelming sorrow, stood gazing at her who was then his ruin; for had she not called his dread enemies about him? Amongst the rest came Captain Richard Forth. And as he saw his enemy in his power--his enemy wearing his sword, and come secretly in the night-time from the puritan camp--he saw he was unworthy to live, and he cried, “The ungodly shall perish from off the face of the earth. Thou hast crept to death, Arthur Talbot; thou hast crept here to death!” The dreadful word made a dreadful impression on the lady. She trembled violently, pressed her hands about her head, and uttered the word over and over again. Was this the great terror that might save her? The learned doctor had said a sudden joy or terror might restore her. “Arthur,” she cried at last, in a tone far different from that in which she had spoken to him but a minute since, and fell upon his breast. She was saved! So he had returned to restore her to reason, and she--she had destroyed him. Even in the one word, “Arthur,” she betrayed him.