e ruthless fall upon man's heart! Clarence's
perfidy--that might be disdained; but the closing lines, which revealed
a daughter's treachery--words cannot express the father's anguish.

The letter dropped from his hand, a stupor seized his senses, and, ere
yet recovered, pale men hurried into his presence to relate how, amidst
joyous trumpets and streaming banners, Richard of Gloucester had led
the Duke of Clarence to the brotherly embrace of Edward. [Hall. The
chronicler adds: "It was no marvell that the Duke of Clarence with so
small persuasion and less exhorting turned from the Earl of Warwick's
party, for, as you have heard before, this marchandise was laboured,
conducted, and concluded by a damsell, when the duke was in the French
court, to the earl's utter confusion." Hume makes a notable mistake in
deferring the date of Clarence's desertion to the battle of Barnet.]

Breaking from these messengers of evil news, that could not now
surprise, the earl strode on, alone, to his daughter's chamber.

He placed the letter in her hands, and folding his arms said, "What
sayest thou of this, Isabel of Clarence?" The terror, the shame, the
remorse, that seized upon the wretched lady, the death-like lips, the
suppressed shriek, the momentary torpor, succeeded by the impulse which
made her fall at her father's feet and clasp his knees,--told the earl,
if he had before doubted, that the letter lied not; that Isabel had
known and sanctioned its contents.

He gazed on her (as she grovelled at his feet) with a look that her eyes
did well to shun.

"Curse me not! curse me not!" cried Isabel, awed by his very silence.
"It was but a brief frenzy. Evil counsel, evil passion! I was maddened
that my boy had lost a crown. I repented, I repented! Clarence shall yet
be true. He hath promised it, vowed it to me; hath written to Gloucester
to retract all,--to--"

"Woman! Clarence is in Edward's camp!"

Isabel started to her feet, and uttered a shriek so wild and despairing,
that at least it gave to her father's lacerated heart the miserable
solace of believing the last treason had not been shared. A softer
expression--one of pity, if not of pardon--stole over his dark face.

"I curse thee not," he said; "I rebuke thee not. Thy sin hath its own
penance. Ill omen broods on the hearth of the household traitor! Never
more shalt thou see holy love in a husband's smile. His kiss shall have
the taint of Judas. From his arms thou shalt start