o lines, between which the prisoners passed into the great
courtyard. A squad of the Tower garrison--no longer in the gay livery of
the King, but in the plain black coat and helmet of policemen--stood
before the door. The banner of the British Republic--the red and white
stripes, with the green union and the harp--floated over the loftiest
tower of all. The prisoners were then separated, and each was led to a
different cell. Then for the first time Geoffrey thought of Dacre; but
he was already under a special escort and being led away; it was too
late. The last that Geoffrey saw of him he was walking erect, with his
silent lips still closed, steady like the course of some strong stream
above the fall. As he watched him, Geoffrey heard the distant murmur of
the people beyond the gates.

Geoffrey well remembered the room that was his prison. He had been taken
there as a sightseer when a child. It was in the Beauchamp Tower;
and--strange coincidence--there was the bear and ragged staff of
Warwick, still visible, cut deep into the old stone walls.

So, thought he, it had all ended. History repeats itself, but in strange
new forms that seem as if they half mock, half follow, the old. Then,
the King was wrong; was now the people in the right? They brought him
some food; and after eating he threw himself on the ground and tried to
sleep. But his sleep was troubled with his dreams of waking: now he
heard Margaret Windsor's broken words again; now he was in the great
hall of St. Stephen's speaking; then he heard again the echo of the gun
that shot down the royal flag, and then the silence of the people,
forever estranged, more dread, more terrible than any words of enemies
or noise of battle. Again he thought of Dacre and his look when all was
lost: a look unchanged, unmoved; a look less of despair than the majesty
of certain fate--a fate not new nor sudden, but chosen of his own calm
will. A man of stone, thought Geoffrey; the incarnation of one thought;
hardly human in his conscious strength. And yet, as Geoffrey saw him in
the darkness of the night, his heart went out to him, and he felt that
he loved this man as he had never loved a friend before.

The dawn came, and its gray damp breath broke through the iron bars. It
seemed all unreal in the daylight. Old stones of escape passed through
his mind: how men, in childish stories of history or romance, with some
rude instrument of iron, had carved their will and way through wa