“Faint-hearted man!” cried Adrian indignantly—­“Your countrymen put their trust in you, and you betray them!”

“I betray them!” said Ryland, “the plague betrays me.  Faint-hearted!  It is well, shut up in your castle, out of danger, to boast yourself out of fear.  Take the Protectorship who will; before God I renounce it!”

“And before God,” replied his opponent, fervently, “do I receive it!  No one will canvass for this honour now—­none envy my danger or labours.  Deposit your powers in my hands.  Long have I fought with death, and much” (he stretched out his thin hand) “much have I suffered in the struggle.  It is not by flying, but by facing the enemy, that we can conquer.  If my last combat is now about to be fought, and I am to be worsted—­so let it be!”

“But come, Ryland, recollect yourself!  Men have hitherto thought you magnanimous and wise, will you cast aside these titles?  Consider the panic your departure will occasion.  Return to London.  I will go with you.  Encourage the people by your presence.  I will incur all the danger.  Shame! shame! if the first magistrate of England be foremost to renounce his duties.”

Meanwhile among our guests in the park, all thoughts of festivity had faded.  As summer-flies are scattered by rain, so did this congregation, late noisy and happy, in sadness and melancholy murmurs break up, dwindling away apace.  With the set sun and the deepening twilight the park became nearly empty.  Adrian and Ryland were still in earnest discussion.  We had prepared a banquet for our guests in the lower hall of the castle; and thither Idris and I repaired to receive and entertain the few that remained.  There is nothing more melancholy than a merry-meeting thus turned to sorrow:  the gala dresses—­the decorations, gay as they might otherwise be, receive a solemn and funereal appearance.  If such change be painful from lighter causes, it weighed with intolerable heaviness from the knowledge that the earth’s desolator had at last, even as an arch-fiend, lightly over-leaped the boundaries our precautions raised, and at once enthroned himself in the full and beating heart of our country.  Idris sat at the top of the half-empty hall.  Pale and tearful, she almost forgot her duties as hostess; her eyes were fixed on her children.  Alfred’s serious air shewed that he still revolved the tragic story related by the Italian boy.  Evelyn was the only mirthful creature present:  he sat on Clara’s lap; and, making matter of glee from his own fancies, laughed aloud.  The vaulted roof echoed again his infant tone.  The poor mother who had brooded long over, and suppressed the expression of her anguish, now burst into tears, and folding her babe in her arms, hurried from the hall.  Clara and Alfred followed.  While the rest of the company, in confused murmur, which grew louder and louder, gave voice to their many fears.