She looked wildly and doubtingly around her; then bursting into tears,--"Alas! alas! what have I uttered?"--and falling on her knees, with clasped hands raised to heaven,--"Pardon, O most merciful Being; pardon for my wild and wicked words! O Thou on whom my reliance is placed, Thou in whose providence I trust,--cast me not off for these hasty words, wrung from me by insufferable anguish! And thou, my lord, my love, my husband, urge me not to despair! This brain may become unsettled, reason may give way, I may again be hurried into impious ravings!--Oh, take pity upon me, dearest, dearest husband!" She clung to his knees; she stretched her beseeching arms towards him. "Do with me what thou wilt, Winifred. If this is weakness, I am weak! If this is cowardice, I am no longer brave! Command me! guide me!--I am but the instrument in thy hands, my wife! I would sacrifice my life to honour; but if there is dishonour in my attempt to escape, I will sacrifice honour itself to you, my love!" "It is not the sacrifice of your honour I demand; yourself cannot value it more highly than does your wife. They carried the address to the king, but it was coupled with an amendment that it should only apply to those who would sign a petition of their own framing. I knew you would not--I do not ask you to do so. Your honour is precious to me as your life--more precious than your life!--but there is no dishonour in escaping from a cruel and an ignominious death!" "Not ignominious, Winifred; an honourable death!" "From a cruel and an unjust death!--a treacherous death! Was it not upon the understanding that your lives were to be spared that you all surrendered at Preston? Was it not to avoid useless effusion of blood that you yielded? and that you advised others to yield? Would it not have been easier and sweeter to have perished in battle, than to die on the scaffold, as your fellow prisoners must? No! there is no dishonour in escaping from tyranny!" She spoke with energy, for the first time uttering the words of "death" and "scaffold," which had never before found their way to her lips. "Have I not said it, my love? I am ready to follow your injunctions. Do with me what you will." "You have promised it, you have sworn it!"--and her face was radiant with joy. "My own love! you are mine once more! We shall not be parted;--we shall live and die together,--we shall grow old together! Oh, thanks! thanks!" and her imagination had overleaped all the bars and bolts, the dreary boundaries of the prison. She felt they were at large to roam over the wide world together. He gave her one sad and grateful kiss, and walked to the window to conceal his emotion; but she saw the expression of his countenance as he slowly surveyed the court-yard, and his eye rested on each sentry as he paced in his appointed spot.