a faint voice, from the curtained recess.

"My name is Nevile," answered Marmaduke, with straightforward brevity.
"Mistress Sibyll Warner told me of this house, where I come for an
hour's shelter to my companion, the Lady Anne, daughter of the Earl of
Warwick."

Marmaduke resigned his charge to an old woman, who was the nurse in that
sick-chamber, and who lifted the hood and chafed the pale, cold hands
of the young maiden; the knight then strode to the recess. The Lady of
Longueville was on the bed of death--an illness of two days had brought
her to the brink of the grave; but there was in her eye and countenance
a restless and preternatural animation, and her voice was clear and
shrill, as she said,--

"Why does the daughter of Warwick, the Yorkist, seek refuge in the house
of the fallen and childless Lancastrian?"

"Swear by thy hopes in Christ that thou will tend and guard her while I
seek the earl, and I reply."

"Stranger, my name is Longueville, my birth noble,--those pledges of
hospitality and trust are stronger than hollow oaths. Say on!"

"Because, then," whispered the knight, after waving the bystanders
from the spot, "because the earl's daughter flies dishonour in a king's
palace, and her insulter is the king!"

Before the dying woman could reply, Anne, recovered by the cares of the
experienced nurse, suddenly sprang to the recess, and kneeling by the
bedside, exclaimed wildly,--"Save me! bide me! save me!"

"Go and seek the earl, whose right hand destroyed my house and his
lawful sovereign's throne,--go! I will live till he arrives!" said
the childless widow, and a wild gleam of triumph shot over her haggard
features.

CHAPTER VIII. THE GROUP ROUND THE DEATH-BED OF THE LANCASTRIAN WIDOW.

The dawning sun gleamed through gray clouds upon a small troop of men,
armed in haste, who were grouped round a covered litter by the outer
door of the Lady Longueville's house; while in the death-chamber, the
Earl of Warwick, with a face as pale as the dying woman's, stood beside
the bed, Anne calmly leaning on his breast, her eyes closed, and tears
yet moist on her long fringes.

"Ay, ay, ay!" said the Lancastrian noblewoman, "ye men of wrath and
turbulence should reap what ye have sown! This is the king for whom ye
dethroned the sainted Henry! this the man for whom ye poured forth the
blood of England's best! Ha! ha! Look down from heaven, my husband, my
martyr-sons! The daughter of your mightiest foe