"Winifred, my wife, my honoured wife! Urge me not to anything unworthy. Call up that noble spirit, which has ever deserved my respect, my admiration, as much as your beauty and your tenderness have won my love! Now listen to me in return!" In a moment her attention was riveted. She scarcely breathed; she listened as though she would devour each word that fell from his lips, in ardent hope that he might himself have struck out some plan which she might execute. "I have ever been unwilling to present petitions to the king, or to the government. All that I could in honour urge in self-defence, all that I could in honesty profess for the future, has been already stated in my answer to the impeachment, and in my address to my peers yesterday. I have been, and still am, unwilling to crave mercy at the hands of one who owes me nothing; from whom I have no right to expect it;--but that you should not reproach me with wilfully neglecting any means of safety, I will consent to a petition being presented to King George by you yourself. If anything can move him, it must be the sight of distress such as yours,--and in such a form as that!" he added, looking upon her, as, like a marble statue, she sat with lips apart, her slender throat bent forward, and her eyes fixed upon him. "He cannot behold thee unmoved! It may avail thee something in future, if it serve not me!" he murmured in a low voice. "Oh! do not trust to the pity of those who have already proved themselves so ruthless: trust rather to the zeal of your own wife, and our faithful Amy Evans!" "I will trust to your zeal, my love, but let it be employed in such a manner as befits us both; and doubly precious will life be to me if 'tis to you I owe it!" "And if, as I expect, the king is obdurate? for he fears you; he fears the unconquerable fidelity of your family to the Stuarts, and he fears the influence of your high character: he fears,--therefore, will not pardon you!" "There is the general petition to parliament, to which I have agreed to put my name." "And if that should fail?" "Then, my love, you must prove that you are a Christian, and a Catholic, and that you have not forgotten the exhortations to faith, submission and patience, which good Father Albert gave you in your youth, and which you tell me he has so often repeated by letter." "Nay, nay. If all these fail, then promise me that you will not reject the means I will offer you; that you will not be more merciless than the king himself; that you will not obstinately refuse to save from despair one who has ever loved you with most true faith!" "Oh, Winifred!"