"Mistress Cecil seems to approve our choice no better than her
father's," he said, after a pause of intense anxiety to all present: "We
would have taught this youth what is due to ourself and our
Commonwealth, by the gentlest means within our power. Methinks, women
are all alike."
"Father! she is dying!" exclaimed the easily-alarmed Lady Frances.
"One moment, and I shall be well," said Constantia: and then she added, "Sir Willmott Burrell, you pant for vengeance, and now you may have it.
Believing that lady, in the sight of God, to be your wife, I cannot
wrong her; though I would have sacrificed myself to--to--." She was
prevented from finishing her sentence by the Protector's exclaiming with
the energy and warmth of his natural character, "We knew it; and now let me present your bridegroom. Frances, it was
excess of joy that caused this agitation."
Constantia interrupted him.
"Not so, your Highness. Alas! God knows, not so. But while I say that
the evil contract shall never be fulfilled--though I will never become
the wife of Sir Willmott Burrell, I also say that the wife of Walter de
Guerre I can never be. Nay more, and I speak patiently, calmly--rather
would I lay my breaking heart, ere it is all broken, beneath the waves
that lash our shore, than let one solitary word escape me, which might
lead you to imagine that even the commands of your Highness could mould
my dreadful destiny to any other shape."
There was no mistaking the expression of the Protector's countenance; it
was that of severe displeasure; for he could ill brook, at any period,
to have his wishes opposed and his designs thwarted. While Constance was
rising from her seat, Sir Willmott Burrell grasped her arm with fiendish
violence, and extending his other hand towards the door leading to the
closet, where she had left her sleeping father, he exclaimed: "Then I accuse openly, in the face of the Protector and this company,
Robert Cecil, who stands there, of the murder of his brother Herbert,
and of the murder of Sir Herbert Cecil's son; and I assert that Hugh
Dalton was accessory to the same!"
A shriek so wild and piercing issued from Constantia's lips that it rang
over the house and terrified all its inmates, who crowded to the portal,
the boundary of which they dared not pass.
It was little to be wondered that she did shriek. Turning toward the
spot at which the villain pointed, the Protector saw the half-demented
Baronet standing in the door-way. He had opened the closet, and come
forth during the momentary absence of his attendant, and now stood
moping and bowing to the assembly in a way that would have moved the
pity of a heart of stone.