"He sat still in the Speaker’s chair, until Cromwell ordered him to come down. For a moment he hesitated, but General Harrison said, ’I will lend you my hand, sir;’ and so he also went out." "But was there no attempt to stay such dismissals? I am amazed, dumbfounded!" said Doctor Verity. "Alderman Allen, the Treasurer of the Army, as he went out said something to Cromwell which angered him very much; and he then and there charged Allen with a shortage of one hundred thousand pounds, and committed him to the care of a musketeer for examination. And as Sir Harry Vane passed him, he told him reproachfully that his own treacherous conduct had brought affairs to their present necessity; for, he added, ’if Sir Harry Vane had been at the Cockpit according to his words, Oliver Cromwell had not been in the Parliament House.’ But I tell you, there was no gainsaying the Cromwell of this hour. He was more than mortal man; and Vane and the others knew, if they had not known before, why he was never defeated in battle." "After the Speaker had left, what then?" "His eye fell upon the Mace, and he said scornfully to some of the Ironsides, ’Take that bauble away!’ Then he ordered the musketeers to clear the House, he himself walking up to its Clerk and taking from under his arm the bill which had caused the trouble, and which was ready to pass. He ordered the man to go home, and he slipped away without a question. Cromwell was the last soul to leave the Chamber, and as he went out of it he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He then walked quietly back to his rooms in the Cockpit, and I dare say he was more troubled to meet Mistress Cromwell than he was to meet Sir Harry Vane and his company." "Oh, no!" said Jane. "Mistress Cromwell is in all her husband’s counsels. He would go to her for comfort, for whatever he may have said and done. I know he is this hour sorrowful and disturbed, and that he will neither eat nor drink till he has justified himself in the sight of God." "He will need God on his right hand and on his left," said Doctor Verity. "More than we can tell will come of this—implacable hostility, rancorous jealousy, everlasting envy and spite. The members——"