“Man cannot punish him,” continued Roughgrove, “but God can.  HE will deal justly, both with the proud and the oppressed.  But to return.  He saw Juliet.  A few minutes after the gorgeous retinue swept past, one of the prince’s attendants came with a note.  Juliet was insensible.  I took it from the messenger’s hand, and started when I looked the villain in the face.  He had been the parson!  He smiled at the recognition!  I hurled my cane at his head, and hastened back to the cottage with a physician in attendance.  Juliet soon recovered from her swoon.  But a frenzied desperation was manifest in her pale features.  I left her in her mother’s charge, and returned in agony to my lodgings.  That night a raging fever seized upon my brain, and for months I was the victim of excruciating disease.  When convalescent, but still confined to my room, I chanced to run my eye over one of the daily papers, and was petrified to see the name of Mrs. Nicholson, in the first article that attracted my attention, in connection with an attempt upon the life of the king!  She had been seized with a fit of temporary insanity, and driving to town, sought her betrayer with the intention of shedding his blood.  She waited at the gate of St. James’s palace until a carriage drove up in which she expected to find the prince.  It was the king—­yet she did not discover her error until the blow was made.  The steel did not perform its office, as you are aware from the history of England, in which this event is recorded.  The king humanely pardoned her on the spot.  A single word she uttered acquainted him with her history, and her piteous looks made an extraordinary impression on his mind.  He too, had, perhaps, sported with innocent beauty.  And now the spectre of the weeping maniac haunted his visions.  Soon he became one himself.  The name of Juliet fortunately was not published in the journals.  It was by some means incorrectly stated that the woman who attacked the king was named Margaret Nicholson, and so it remains on the page of history.

“As soon as I was able to leave my chamber, I repaired to the cottage.  Juliet was a mother.  Reason had returned, and she strove to submit with Christian humility to her pitiable lot.  She received me with the same sweet smile that had formerly beamed on her guileless face.  Her mother, the promoter of the fancied advantageous alliance, now seemed to suffer most.  They both clung to me as their only remaining friend, and in truth I learned that all other friends had forsaken them.  I looked upon the deceived, outraged, but still innocent Juliet, with pity.  Her little cherub twins—­”

“Twins!” echoed Glenn.

“Ay, twins,” replied Roughgrove, “and they lie behind you now, side by side, on yonder bed.”

Glenn turned and gazed a moment in silence on the sleeping forms of William, and Mary.