The Earl lowered upon the girl, and the black anger upon his brow might have warned a more intrepid person than even she appeared to be that there was peril in trifling. When at last he spoke, his voice was harsh and menacing.

“What do you expect to gain by a statement so preposterous?”

“I expect to gain a father.”

The girl’s answer trod quick upon the heels of the question, but her colour changed from red to pale, and from pale to red again, and her hurried breathing hinted of some knowledge of her hazard, which nevertheless she faced without flinching.

“My eldest daughter, say you? My eldest daughter is Ann, aged thirteen, a modest little maid. I take you to be older, and I should hesitate to apply to you the qualification I have just coupled with her name.”

“I am sixteen, therefore her senior. Thus one part of my contention is admitted. If she is modest, it doth become a maid, and is reasonably to be expected, for she hath a mother’s care. I have had none. If you detect a boldness in my manner, ’t is but another proof I am my father’s daughter.”

Something resembling a grimace rather than a smile disturbed the white lips of Strafford at this retort. He bent his eyes on the ground, and his mind seemed to wander through the past. They stood thus in silence opposite each other, the girl watching him intently, and when she saw his mouth twitch with a spasm of pain, a great wave of pity overspread her face and brought the moisture to her eyes; but she made no motion toward him, held in increasing awe of him.

“Boldness is not a virtue,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “There’s many a jade in England who can claim no relationship with me.”

This remark, calling for no response, received none.

“Sixteen years of age! Then that was in——”

The Earl paused in his ruminations as if the simple mathematical problem baffled him, the old look of weariness and pain clouding his downturned face.

“The year 1624,” said the girl promptly.

“Doubtless, doubtless. 1624. It is long since; longer than the days that have passed seem to indicate. I was a young man then, now——now——I am an aged wreck, and all in sixteen years. And so in you, the spirit of youth, the unknown past confronts me, demanding——demanding what?”

“Demanding nothing, my lord.”

“Humph. You are the first then. They all want something. You think I am an old dotard who is ready, because you say you want nothing, to accept your absurd proposal. But I am not yet fifty, nor as near it as these fell maladies would have me appear; and a man should be in his prime at fifty. Madam, it will require more convincing testimony to make me listen to you further.”

“The testimony, irrefutable, stands here before you. Raise your eyes from the ground, my lord, and behold it. If, scrutinizing me, you deny that I am your daughter, I shall forthwith turn from you and trouble you no more.”

Strafford slowly lifted his gloomy face, prematurely seamed with care, and his heavy eyes scanned closely the living statue that confronted him. The sternness of his features gradually relaxed, and an expression near akin to tenderness overspread his face.

“Any man might be proud to claim you, my girl, no matter how many other reasons for pride he possessed. But you have not come here merely because someone flattered the Earl of Strafford by saying you resembled him.”

“No, my lord. I am come to return to you this document which once you presented to my mother.”

She handed him a paper, which he read with intent care. It ran thus:

“I have, in little, much to say to you, or else one of us must be much to blame. But in truth I have that confidence in you, and that assurance in myself, as to rest secure the fault will never be made on either side. Well, then; this short and this long which I aim at is no more than to give you this first written testimony that I am your husband; and that husband of yours that will ever discharge these duties of love and respect toward you which good women may expect, and are justly due from good men to discharge them; and this is not only much, but all which belongs to me; and wherein I shall tread out the remainder of life which is left to me——”

Strafford looked up from his perusal, blank amazement upon his countenance.

“How came you by this paper?”

“I found it among the documents left by my grandfather, who died a year ago. It was sent by you to my mother.”

“Impossible.”

“Do you deny the script?”

“I do not deny it, but ’t was written by me eight years since, and presented to my third wife, whom I married privately.”

“Your third wife? Who was she?”

“She was Mistress Elizabeth Rhodes, and is now Lady Strafford.”

“Then she is your fourth wife. You will see by your own inditing that this letter was written in March, 1624.”

The date was unmistakably set down by the same hand that had penned the bold signature, “Thomas Wentworth,” and the bewilderment of the Earl increased as he recognized that here was no forgery, but a genuine letter antedating its duplicate.

“Is it possible,” he murmured to himself, “that a man has so little originality as to do practically the same thing twice?” Then aloud to the girl he said:

“Who was your mother?”

“I had hoped the reading of this document would have rendered your question unnecessary. Has a man such gift of forgetting, that the very name of the woman he solemnly married has slipped his memory as easily as the writing of the letter she cherished?”

“She was Frances, daughter of Sir John Warburton,” murmured the Earl.

“His only daughter, as I am hers, my lord.”

“But when Sir John wrote me coldly of her death, he made no mention of any issue.”

“My grandfather always hated you, my lord. It is very like that he told you not the cause of my mother’s death was her children’s birth.”

“Children?”

“Yes, my lord. My twin brother and myself.”

An ashen hue overspread the Earl’s face, and the hand that held the letter trembled until the fateful missive shook like one of the autumn leaves on the tree above it. Again his mind wandered through the past and conjured up before him the laughing face of his supposedly only son, whose position was thus unexpectedly challenged by a stranger, unknown and unloved. A daughter more or less was of small account, but an elder son promised unsuspected complications. The ill favour with which he had at first regarded the girl returned to his troubled countenance, and she saw with quick intuition that she had suddenly lost all the ground so gradually gained. Cold dislike tinctured the tone in which the next question was asked.

“If, as you say, you have a brother, why is he not here in your place; you in the background, where you properly belong?”

“Sir, I suppose that her good name is thought more of by a woman than by a man. She wishes to be assured that she came properly authenticated into this world, whereas a man troubles little of his origin, so be it he is here with some one to fight or to love. Or perhaps it is that the man is the deeper, and refuses to condone where a woman yearns to forgive. My brother shares our grandfather’s dislike of you. He thinks you cared little for our mother, or you would not have been absent during her last days when——”

“I knew nothing of it. The times then, as now, were uncertain, requiring absorbed attention from those thrown willingly or unwillingly into public affairs. What can a boy of sixteen know of the duties thrust upon a man in my situation?”

“Sixteen or not, he considers himself even now a man of position, and he holds your course wrong. He says he has taken up the opinions you formerly held, and will do his best to carry them to success. He is for the Parliament and against the King. As for me, I know little of the questions that disturb the State. My only knowledge is that you are my father, and were you the wickedest person in the world I would come to you. A man may have many daughters, but a daughter can have but one father; therefore am I here, my lord.”

Like the quick succession of shade and sunshine over the sensitive surface of a lovely lake, the play of varying emotions added an ever-changing beauty to the girl’s expressive face; now a pitiful yearning toward her father when she saw he suffered; then a coaxing attitude, as if she would win him whether he would or no; again a bearing of pride when it seemed she would be denied; and throughout all a rigid suppression of herself, a standing of her ground, a determination not to give way to any rising sentiment which might make the after repulse a humiliation; if a retreat must come it should be carried out with dignity.

The Earl of Strafford saw nothing of this, for his eyes were mostly on the ground at his feet. That his mind was perturbed by the new situation so unexpectedly presented to him was evident; that he was deeply suspicious of a trap was no less clear. When he looked up at her he found his iron resolution melting in spite of himself, and, as he wished to bring an unclouded judgment to bear upon the problem, he scrutinized the brown sward at his feet. Nevertheless he was quick to respond to any show of sympathy with himself, even though he was unlikely to exhibit appreciation, and he was equally quick to resent the slightest lack of deference on the part of those who addressed him. If the girl had made a thorough study of his character she could not have better attuned her manner to his prejudices. Her attitude throughout was imbued with the deepest respect, and if the eye refused to be advocate for her, the ear could not close itself to the little thrill of affection that softened her tone as she spoke to him. He raised his head abruptly as one who has come to a decision.

“November is the stepmother of the months, and the air grows cold. Come with me to the palace. In a world of lies I find myself believing you; thus I am not grown so old as I had feared. Come.”

The girl tripped lightly over the rustling leaves and was at his side in an instant, then slowed her pace in unison with his laboured mode of progression.

“Sir, will you lean upon my shoulder?”

“No. I am ailing, but not decrepit.”

They walked together in silence, and if any viewed them the onlookers were well concealed, for the park seemed deserted. Entering the palace and arriving at the foot of a stairway, solicitous menials proffered assistance, but Strafford waved them peremptorily aside, and, accepting now the support he had shortly before declined, leaned on his daughter’s shoulder and wearily mounted the stair.

The room on the first floor into which he led her overlooked a court. A cheerful fire burned on the hearth and cast a radiance upon the sombre wainscoting of the walls. A heavy oaken table was covered with a litter of papers, and some books lay about. Into a deep arm-chair beside the fire Strafford sank with a sigh of fatigue, motioning his daughter to seat herself opposite him, which she did. He regarded her for some moments with no pleased expression on his face, then said with a trace of petulancy in the question:

“Did your grandfather bring you up a lady, or are you an ignorant country wench?”

She drew in quickly the small feet out-thrust to take advantage of the comforting fire, and the blaze showed her cheek a ruddier hue than heretofore.

“Sir,” she said, “the children of the great, neglected by the great, must perforce look to themselves. I was brought up, as you know, without a mother’s care, in the ancient hall of a crusty grandfather, a brother my only companion. We played together and fought together, as temper willed, and he was not always the victor, although he is the stronger. I can sometimes out-fence him, and, failing that, can always outrun him. Any horse he can ride, I can ride, and we two have before now put to flight three times our number among the yokels of the neighborhood. As to education, I have a smattering, and can read and write. I have studied music to some advantage, and foreign tongues with very little. I daresay there are many things known to your London ladies that I am ignorant of.”

“We may thank God for that,” muttered her father.

“If there are those in London, saving your lordship, who say I am not a lady, I will box their ears for them an they make slighting remarks in my presence.”

“A most unladylike argument! The tongue and not the hand is the Court lady’s defence.”

“I can use my tongue too, if need be, my lord.”

“Indeed I have had evidence of it, my girl.”

“Queen Elizabeth used her fists, and surely she was a lady.”

“I have often had my doubts of it. However, hereafter you must be educated as doth become a daughter of mine.”

“I shall be pleased to obey any commands my father places on me.”

The conversation was interrupted by a servant throwing open the door, crying:

“His Majesty the King!”

The girl sprang instantly to her feet, while her father rose more slowly, assisting himself with his hands on the arms of the chair.