priests who misled me!"

"Even in your own religion there are many priests who would withhold
you from such crimes," said Richard.

"There are! I know it! I have spoken with them. They say no priest
can put aside the eternal laws of God's justice. So these others,
Chidiock here, Donne and Salisbury, always cried out against the
slaying of the Queen, though--wretch that I was--and gulled by Ballard
and Savage, I deemed the exploit so noble and praiseworthy that I even
joined Tichborne with me in that accursed portraiture! Yea, you may
well deem me mad, but it was Gifford who encouraged me in having it
made, no doubt to assure our ruin. Oh, Mr. Talbot! was ever man so
cruelly deceived as me?"

"It is only too true, Antony. My heart is full of rage and indignation
when I think thereof. And yet, my poor lad, what concerns thee most is
to lay aside all such thoughts as may not tend to repentance before
God."

"I know it, I know it, sir. All the more that we shall die without the
last sacraments. Commend us to the prayers of our Queen, sir, and of
her. But to proceed with what imports you to know for her sake, while
I have space to speak."

He proceeded to tell how, between dissipation and intrigue, he had
lived in a perpetual state of excitement, going backwards and forwards
between London and Lichfield to attend to the correspondence with Queen
Mary and the Spanish ambassador in France, and to arrange the details
of the plot; always being worked up to the highest pitch by Gifford and
Ballard, while Langston continued to be the great assistant in all the
correspondence. All the time Sir Francis Walsingham, who was really
aware of all, if not the prime mover in the intrigue, appeared
perfectly unsuspicious; often received Babington at his house, and
discussed a plan of sending him on a commission to France, while in
point of fact every letter that travelled in the Burton barrels was
deciphered by Phillipps, and laid before the Secretary before being
read by the proper owners. In none of these, however, as Babington
could assure Mr. Talbot, had Cicely been mentioned,--the only danger to
her was through Langston.

Things had come to a climax in July, when Babington had been urged to
obtain from Mary such definite approbation of his plans as might
satisfy his confederates, and had in consequence written the letter and
obtained the answer, copies of which had been read to him at his
private examination, and