"Yes!--yes, there is hope!--the king will pardon you," she exclaimed. "He will spare my James--I will implore your life at his feet!" "Nay, nay, love--say not the king," interrupted the young enthusiast for the house of Stewart; "it will be but imprisonment till all is over--the _Elector_ cannot seek my life." He strove long and earnestly to persuade, to assure her, that his life was not in danger--that he would be saved--and what she wished she believed. The jailer entered, and informed them it was time that she should depart; and again sinking her head upon his breast, she wept "goodnight." But each day she revisited him, and they spoke of his deliverance together. At times, too, she told him with tears of the efforts she had made to obtain his pardon--of her attempts to gain admission to the presence of the king--of the repulses she met with--of her applications to the nobility connected with the court--of the insult and inhumanity she met with from some--the compassion she experienced from others--the interest that they took in his fate, and the hopes and the promises which they held out. Upon those hopes and those promises she fondly dwelt. She looked into his eyes to perceive the hope that they kindled there, and as joy beamed from them, she half forgot that his life hung upon the word of a man. But his parents came to visit him; hers followed her, and they joined their efforts to hers, and anxiously, daily, almost hourly, they exerted their energies to obtain his pardon. His father possessed an influence in electioneering matters in Lancashire, and hers could exercise the same in an adjoining county. That influence was now urged--the members they had supported were importuned. They promised to employ their best exertions. Whatever the feelings or principles of the elder Dawson might be, he had never avowed disaffection openly--he had never evinced a leaning to the family of Stewart--he had supported the government of the day; and the father of Fanny Lester was an upholder of the house of Hanover. The influence of all their relatives, and of all their friends, was brought into action; peers and commoners were supplicated, and they pledged their intercession. Men high in office took an interest in the fate of James Dawson, or professed to take it; promises, half official, were held out; and when his youth, the short time that he had been engaged in the rebellion, and the situation that he held in the army of the Adventurer, were considered, no one doubted but that his pardon was certain--that he would not be brought to trial. Even his parents felt assured; but the word of the king was not passed.