"The Duke of Buckingham has been sent to the Tower—where he ought to have been sent long ago; but he is married to the daughter of Fairfax, and the haughty Lord General went to see Cromwell about the matter. He met him in the gallery at Whitehall and asked that the order for Buckingham’s arrest should be retracted. And Cromwell told him that if the offense were only against his own life, the Duke could go free that hour, but that he could not pardon plotters against the Commonwealth. It grieved him to the heart to say these words, and Fairfax saw how ill and how troubled he looked. But he had not one word of courtesy; he turned abruptly and cocked his hat, and threw his cloak under his arm in that insolent way he was ever used to when in his tempers. And Oliver looked at me like a man that has been struck in the face by a friend. Then he went to his desk and worked faithfully, inexorably, all day;—but—but——" "But what, Israel?" "It is near—the end." Indeed, this interview with Fairfax seemed to be the last heart-weight he could carry. That night, the man who had been used to shelter his dove-like wife from every trouble in his strong heart, laid his head upon her shoulder and said pitifully, "O Elizabeth, I am the wretchedest creature! Speak some words of hope and peace to me." Then she soothed and comforted him from the deep wells of her tenderness, and never once put into words the fearful thought which lay deep in her heart—"What will become of me when he is gone?" But Oliver had this same anxious boding, and he managed that night to tell his wife that if God, in mercy, called him on the sudden, Israel Swaffham had his last words and advices for her,—words that would then be from Oliver in heaven to Elizabeth on earth. They spoke of their old, free, happy life; of their sons and daughters both here and there, and mingled for the last time their tears and prayers together. "Let us trust yet in God, dear Oliver," she said, as they rose from their knees; "is He not sufficient?" "Trust in God!" he cried. "Who else is there in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath? And as our John Milton says— "’. . . if this truth fail, The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth’s base built on stubble.’ Trust in God! Indeed I do! God has not yet spoken His last word to Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell." Then he drew her close to his heart, kissed her fondly, and said, almost with sobs, "My dearest, if I go the way of all the earth first, thou wilt never forget me?" "How could I forget thee? How could I? Not in my life days! Not in my eternal days! Heart of my heart! My good, brave, true husband, Elizabeth will never forget thee, never cease to love thee and honour thee, while the Everlasting One is thy God and my God."