"Sir Launcelot said that Roger's hand was wont to be a little too ready to be raised. Ungenerous of him to say it, and yet too true. Slowly roused; but once roused, blind to all results. "How bitter his vain repentance would be if this terrible thing were possible, and he once came to know it. "How bitter and how vain! "But even if it were possible, and he never knew it, but we knew it, what a gulf from henceforth for ever between us and him! "I cannot breathe this to my Mother. And yet, if Sir Launcelot's fears could have any ground, it would seem a treachery, if ever Roger came to us again to let her touch in welcome the hand that dealt that blow! "I know not what to do. It is the first perplexity I ever knew in which I could not fly to her for aid and counsel. "What a child I have been. "What a child I am! "Can it be possible that our Lord thought of His disciples being perplexed and bewildered at all, as I am, when, just before He went away, He called them 'little children?' Can it be possible that He meant, Come to me, as little children to their mother; when you want wisdom, come to Me!" CHAPTER XI. OLIVE'S STORY. The first trustworthy tidings we had of the battle of Naseby were from Dr. Antony. I saw him coming hastily across the fields from the direction of Davenant Hall. It was very early in the morning. The village had been stirring through the previous afternoon with uneasy rumours, and I had not slept. I was watching the light in the window of Lady Lucy's oratory, and thinking how she and Lettice had watched there together that terrible night so long ago, saying collects for Roger, and how Lettice had hastened to us in the morning, on her white palfrey with the welcome tidings that Sir Launcelot would recover. And now how far we were from each other! What a sea between us! Two moats, (the moonlight was shining on ours just below me,) drawbridges, and fortifications. But deeper and stronger than all the moats and walls in the world lay between us the memories of those bitter years of war, and ever-widening misconception and division. Yet I felt sure Lettice loved us still. And as I was thus looking and thinking, I saw Dr. Antony coming hastily down the road from the stile which led across the fields to the Hall, where I had parted from Harry Davenant that night when he brought the tidings of Lord Strafford's execution, and would not come in. My first impulse was to rush down the stairs and unbar the door. But many things held me back. A presentiment that the news he brought might be such as there was no need to fore-date by hurrying to meet it; an uncomfortable recollection of Job Forster's letter, and of that conversation in which I had said nothing right.