ich
was forfeited to thee."

"The wife of a traitor, the offspring of a traitress, connected on every
side with treason, and canst ask if her detention would have availed us
aught? Joan, Joan, thy defence is but a weak one," answered the king,
sternly, but he called her "Joan," and that simple word thrilled to her
heart as the voice of former years, and her father felt a sudden gush
of tears fall on the hand he had not withdrawn, and vainly he struggled
against the softening feelings those tears had brought. It was strange
that, angered as he really was, the better feelings of Edward should in
such a moment have so completely gained the ascendency. Perhaps he was
not proof against the contrast before him, presented in the persons of
Buchan and Gloucester; the base villainy of the one, the exalted
nobility of the other, alike shone forth the clearer from their
unusually close contact. In general, Edward was wont to deem these
softening emotions foolish weaknesses, which he would banish by shunning
the society of all those who could call them forth. Their candid
acknowledgment of having deserved his displeasure, and submission to his
will, however, so soothed his self-love, his fondness for absolute
power, that he permitted them to have vent with but little restraint.
Agnes might have been the wife of a traitor, but he was out of Edward's
way; the daughter of a traitress, but she was equally powerless; linked
with treason, but too much crashed by her own misery to be sensible of
aught else. Surely she was too insignificant for him to persevere in
wrath, and alienate by unmerited severity yet more the hearts which at
such moments he felt he valued, despite his every effort to the
contrary.

So powerfully was he worked upon, that had it not been for the
ill-restrained fury of Buchan, it was possible the subject would have
been in the end peaceably dismissed; but on that earl's reminding him of
his royal word, the king commanded Gloucester to deliver up his charge
to her rightful guardian, and all the past should be forgiven. The earl
quietly and respectfully replied he could not, for he knew not where she
was. Wrath gathered on Edward's brow, and Buchan laid his hand on his
sword; but neither the royal commands nor Buchan's muttered threats and
oaths of vengeance could elicit from Gloucester more than that she had
set off to return to Scotland with an aged man, not three hours after
the execution had taken place. He had p