"The good weak priest who accompanied her was easily induced to perform the ceremony of our church, and the Earl had now wealth sufficient fully to bribe the priest of that village; but as it was determined that in a very few days she should go on to join her uncle, and double the quickness of her journey to make up for the lost time, I only, and one of the servants, were admitted to be present as witnesses to a marriage which was to be held strictly secret. I saw them married by the rites of both churches; and my mistress, for her honour's sake, demanded and received from both priests, certificates of the marriage. The day before that on which she was to have set out, news arrived of the death of Cromwell, and the rumour that all was in confusion through the country across which we had to pass. The tidings did not make them very sad, for they were in their first happiness; but the boy Franklin Gray was again sent to London, in company with our good weak priest, to see her uncle, and ask whether she should come on. At the end of a week, the boy returned alone. Her uncle had quitted London in haste, and the poor priest had been involved in a tumult in the streets, had been recognised as belonging to the Catholic Church, and had been murdered by the brutal populace. For him she grieved sincerely; but it seemed to me that she was not very sorry that a fair excuse was given her for remaining with her husband, and sharing his fate, whatever that fate might be. "She soon experienced, however, the sad lot of those who cast themselves upon the mercy of man. He was violent--rash--hasty. There were matters grieved him deeply. The sum that he possessed was drawing near to a close, and he wished much it was evident, ere two months were over--I do not say to annul his marriage, for I believe, nay, I am sure, he loved her still--but to have it concealed for the time. He urged her then to return to her brother, showing her that he could with difficulty support her, even if he were not himself by chance discovered by lingering in England; and he framed for her a plausible story to account for the period of her absence, which in times of such danger and confusion might easily be done.