ood of the Lamb, that the power of us be in the tree of
life, and enter by the gates into the city.'"

"When art thou shorn priest?" asked Edward cynically.

"I will do thee to wit in time to see it," said Richard more lightly, as
they rode across the drawbridge at Langley.

How far did Edward play the traitor in this matter of the attempted
rescue of the Mortimers? It cannot be said distinctly that he did at
all; but he had played the traitor on so many previous occasions--he had
assisted in hatching so many conspiracies for the mere object of
denouncing his associates--that the suspicion of his having done so in
this instance is difficult to avoid. And the strangest point of all is,
that to the last hour of his life this man played with Lollardism. He
used it like a cloak, throwing it on or off as circumstances demanded.
He spent his life in deceiving and betraying every friend in turn, and
at last told the truth in dying, when he styled himself "of all sinners
the most wicked."

Three days after that evening, the House of Lords sat in "Parliament
robes," in Westminster Hall. But the King was not present: and there
were several peers absent, in attendance on His Majesty; among them the
Duke of York, the Earl of Cambridge, and the Earl of Kent. The House
had met to try a prisoner: and the prisoner was solemnly summoned by a
herald's voice to the bar.

"Custance of Langley, Baroness of Cardiff!"

Forward she came, with firm step and erect head, clad in velvet and
ermine, as beseemed a Princess of England: and with a most princess-like
bend of her stately head, she awaited the reading of the charge against
her.

The charge was high treason. The prisoner's answer was a simple
point-blank denial of its truth.

"What mean you?" demanded the Lords. "No did you, by means of false
keys, gain entrance into the privy chambers of our Lord the King in the
Castle of Windsor?"

"I did so."

"How gat you those false keys?"

"From a blacksmith, as you can well guess."

"From what smith?"

"I cannot tell you; for I know not."

"Through whom gat you them?"

"I gat them, and I used them: that is enough."

"Through whom gat you them?"

"Fair Lords, you get no more of me."

"Through whom gat you them?" was repeated the third time.

The answer was dead silence. The question was repeated a fourth time.

"My Lords, an' ye ask me four hundred times, I will say what I say now:
ye get no more of me."

"We hav