t needs be set down here. Ere six months had
passed, there grew up between Mrs. Greenville and the Prisoner a very
warm and close friendship, which in time ripened into the tenderest of
attachments. That her love for her dear Frank ever wavered, or that she
ever swerved for one moment in her reverence for his memory, I cannot
and I will not believe; but she nevertheless looked with an exceeding
favour upon the imprisoned man, and made no scruple of avowing her Flame
to Ruth. This young person did in time confide the same to her father,
who was much concerned thereat, he not knowing how far the allowance of
any love-passages between two such strangely assorted suitors might
tally with his duty towards the King and Government. Nor could he shut
his eyes to the fact that the Prisoner regarded Mrs. Greenville first
with a tender compassion (such as a father might have towards his
child), next with an ardent sympathy, and finally--and that very
speedily too--with a Feeling that had all the Signs and Portents of
Love. These two unfortunate People were so shut out from the world, and
so spiritually wedded by a common Misery and discomfort, that their
mere earthly coming together could not be looked upon but as natural and
reasonable; for Mrs. Greenville was the only woman upon whom the
Prisoner could be expected to look,--he being, beyond doubt, one of
Gentle Degree, if not of Great and Noble Station, and therefore beyond
aught but the caresses of a Patron with such a simple maid as Ruth
Glover, whose father, although of some military rank, was, like most of
the Captains who had served under the Commonwealth (witness Ireton,
Harrison, Hacker, and many more) of exceeding mean extraction.

That love-vows were interchanged between this Bride and Bridegroom of
Sorrow and a Dark Dungeon almost, I know not; but their liking for each
other's society--he imparting to her some of his studies, and she
playing music, with implements of which she was well provided, to him of
an afternoon--had become so apparent both to the soldiers on guard and
servants, even to the poor Invalid Matrosses wheezing and shivering in
their buff-coats, that Colonel Glover, in a very flurry of uncertainty,
sent post haste to Whitehall to know what he was to do--whether to
chamber up Mrs. Greenville in her chamber, as of aforetime, or confine
the Prisoner in one of the lower vaults in the body of the rock, with so
many pounds weight of iron on his legs. For Colo