th.

"When the two further years were run out, Blanche--"

Blanche was a little startled to hear how Mrs Tremayne's voice
trembled. She was evidently telling "an owre true tale."

"The maid's father, and he that should have been her husband, were taken
in one day. When those two years were run out, her father lay hidden
away, having 'scaped from prison, until he might safely be holpen out of
the country over seas: and the young man was a captive in Exeter Castle,
and in daily expectation of death."

"Good lack!"

"And two years thereafter, the young man was had away from Exeter unto
Woburn, and there set in the dread prison called Little Ease, shaped
like to a funnel, wherein a man might neither stand, nor sit, nor lie,
nor kneel."

"O Mistress Tremayne! Heard any ever the like! And what came of the
maiden, poor soul?"

The needlework in Mrs Tremayne's hand was still now; and if any one had
been present who had known her thirty years before, he would have said
that a shadow of her old look at that terrible time had come back to her
deep sweet eyes.

"My child, God allowed her to be brought very low. At the first, she
was upheld mightily by His consolations: and they that saw her said how
well she bare it. But 'tis not alway the first blush of a sorrow that
trieth the heart most sorely. And there came after this a time--when it
was an old tale to them that knew her, and their comforting was given
over,--a day came when all failed her. Nay, I should have said rather,
all seemed to fail her. God failed her not; but her eyes were holden,
and she saw Him not beside her. It was darkness, an horror of great
darkness, that fell upon her. The Devil came close enough; he was very
busy with her. Was there any hope? quoth he. Nay, none, or but very
little. Then of what worth were God's promises to hear and deliver? He
had passed His word, and He kept it not. Was God able to help?--was He
true to His promise?--go to, was there any God in Heaven at all? And
so, Blanche, she was tossed to and fro on the swelling billows, now up,
seeing a faint ray of light, now down, in the depth of the darkness:
yet, through all, with an half-palsied grasp, so to speak, upon the hem
of Christ's garment, a groping after Him with numb hands that scarce
felt whether they held or no. O Blanche, it was like the plague in the
land of Egypt--it was darkness that might be felt!"

Blanche listened in awed interest.

"Dear heart,