With her gentleness there was blended a certain degree of pride, a consciousness of being the scion of an ancient stock, which would have rendered it impossible for a mean thought even to pass through her mind, and which ever enabled her to entrench herself in dignified reserve, should others neglect to pay that respect due to noble birth, which, unless forgotten by them, would never be remembered by herself. CHAPTER XXII. Distress is virtue's opportunity.--_Southern._ The Earl of Nithsdale felt even more keenly than did the countess the indignity with which she had been treated in her interview with the king. His dark eye flashed, he bit his compressed lip till the blood almost started; he paced the apartment with hasty strides, as he pictured to himself his graceful, his delicate, his shrinking Winifred, on whose fair form he would scarcely allow the winds to blow too roughly, dragged along the floor, the rude hands of strangers round that slender waist; and it was then he felt indeed that he was a prisoner, powerless to defend her whom he had sworn to cherish! The bars, the bolts, the high walls, the moat, the guards! oh, how his soul rebelled against them all! How agonising was the impotent indignation which possessed his every faculty. Lady Nithsdale grieved to see his agitation, and yet from his very agitation she gathered hope that she might eventually work him to her wishes. Meanwhile, with the assistance of Amy, she had procured most of the articles necessary for the disguise of her husband; and although resolved that every other means of safety should be tried, she still kept her mind fixed upon this last resource. The consciousness of having still a point to look to, something still to rest upon when all else failed, sustained her courage; but at the same time it prevented her attempting to submit to an event, which, in the judgment of others, was now inevitable. She could not even think of resignation; on the contrary, with this secret hope in her heart, and this plan in her mind, she would have been alarmed at her own want of reliance in that plan, had she tried to school her feelings to acquiesce in the fatal doom. A few days after the countess's unsuccessful application to the king, the resolution was taken in council that the sentence passed upon the rebel lords should be carried into execution without delay, and on the 18th the necessary warrants and orders were despatched, both to the Lieutenant of the Tower, and to the Sheriffs of the city of London and Middlesex.