with me, Arabella Greenville, according to thy desires."

He paused, as though for some expression of sorrow; but she was silent.

"Thou art hardened," he resumed; "it may be that there are things that
_cannot_ be forgiven."

"There are," she said, firmly.

"I spare thy life," the Lord Protector continued; "but, Arabella
Greenville, thou must go into Captivity. Until I am Dead, we two cannot
be at large together. But I will not doom thee to a solitary prison.
Thou shalt have a companion in durance. Yes," he ended, speaking between
his teeth, and more to himself than to her, "she shall join Him yonder
in his lifelong prison. Blood for Blood; the Slayer and the Avenger
shall be together."

She was taken back to her place of confinement, where meat and drink
were placed before her, and a tiring-woman attended her with a change of
garments. And at day-break the next morning she was taken away in a
litter towards Colchester in Essex.[C]

FOOTNOTES:

[B] This Lady Lisle was a very virulent partisan woman, and, according
to my Grandmother's showing, was so bitter against the Crown that, being
taken, when a young woman, to witness the execution of King Charles, and
seeing one who pressed to the scaffold after the blow to dip her
kerchief in the Martyr's blood, she cried out "that she needed no such
relic; but that she would willingly drink the Tyrant's blood." This is
the same Alice Lisle who afterwards, in King James's time, suffered at
Winchester for harbouring two of the Western Rebels.

[C] Those desirous of learning fuller particulars of my Grandmother's
History, or anxious to satisfy themselves that I have not Lied, should
consult a book called _The Travels of Edward Brown, Esquire_, that is
now in the Great Library at Montague House. Mr. Brown is in most things
curiously exact; but he errs in stating that Mrs. Greenville's name was
Letitia,--it was Arabella.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

MY GRANDMOTHER DIES, AND I AM LEFT ALONE, WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A NAME.

I HAVE sat over against Death unnumbered times in the course of a long
and perilous life, and he has appeared to me in almost every shape; but
I shall never forget that Thirtieth of January in the year '20, when my
Grandmother died. I have seen men all gashed and cloven about--a very
mire of blood and wounds,--and heads lying about on the floor like
ninepins, among the Turks, where a man's life is as cheap as the
Halfpenny Hatch. I was with that famous Com