you can save him."

Lincoln shook his head. "Not even if I would, girl," he replied,
sternly.

"You, too, desert me," she murmured. She covered her face with her hands
for a moment, then with a sudden impulse she stood, tall and resolute.
Her eyes flashed fire. "If it is wrong to love a traitor, let it be so.
I cannot help loving John Dacre, and I should like to die with him."

Richard Lincoln gazed at her in amazement. There was pride, too, in his
glance. He saw in her transfigured face a repetition of his own youth
when the spirit soared impatient of restraint and knew not yet the curbs
that check the extravagance oL ardent natures. In those early days he
had struck out for the ideal right, even as her heart in the fulness of
its love poured out its tide of passion. He held out his hands to her,
and his lips trembled.

"My child, my child! would to God I could save your lover. You are
dearer to me than all the world beside. Do not spurn your father's arms.
His breast is your rightful place for comfort now."

She suffered him to clasp her in his embrace. "I will be brave," she
whispered, looking up into his eyes. "Kiss me; I will be brave, and--and
when he dies let me die, too."

"My child!" murmured Lincoln again, and there was terror as well as pity
in his tone. He held her close, and her head rested on his shoulder.
"All may yet be well, my dear one," he said tenderly.

Before daybreak the next morning a stream of people was pouring up from
the city and winding its way through Cheapside and Fleet Street and the
Strand to the judgment hall in the Houses of Parliament. By the time the
guard from the Tower reached Westminster, vast multitudes lined the
sidewalks and formed so dense a mass in the square in front of the gates
that progress was well-nigh impossible. The populace was orderly,
however, and fell back before the horses of a troop of cavalry, with no
further demonstration than a sullen murmur.

The prisoners were brought before the bar of the Commons, and the Upper
House entered immediately after to take their seats. It was an
impressive scene. One might have heard a pin drop as the officer of the
Crown rose to read the indictment, and again when, as he sat down, the
hoarse voice of the clerk called out the names of the accused, shorn of
all titles, to rise and answer to the charge of high treason against the
Republic of Great Britain and Ireland.

"What say you, John Dacre--guilty or not guilty?"