FATHER AND DAUGHTER

WHEN Lady Clancarty ascended the water stairs on her return from the Tower she was outwardly calm, the floodtide of her emotion having spent itself in the outburst at the Traitor’s Gate. Young Mackie, still acting as her sole escort, came up the steps behind her and the two, pausing at the top, saw dawn breaking over the river. Like a wraith the fog rolled up along the water, the sky grew pale and in the far east a light shone, keen and cold. The streets were unusually quiet; it was a little before the hour when a city stirs for its first breath; darkness lay deeply in the narrow lanes, and silence. On the river, which bristled with a forest of masts, some ships put up their sails.

Suddenly they heard a woman’s scream and saw two figures struggling at the mouth of the lane before them. Mackie started toward them, but the woman broke away and ran screaming to the water side, almost brushing against Lady Clancarty, and as she did so there was a cry of recognition and she fell upon her neck, weeping and exclaiming. It was Alice Lynn. Sir Edward seized the man.

“You rogue!” he exclaimed, “you would abuse a woman, would you?”

But the fellow, struggling lustily for his liberty, broke out with an Irish oath, and Mackie knew him.

“You are Lord Clancarty’s man,” he said in surprise, releasing him; “what means this? I am Sir Edward Mackie.”

“Faix, there’s naything the matther,” replied Denis sullenly, rubbing his neck; “I was jist givin’ thet dasignin’ hizzy a shaking fer bethrayin’ me Lord Clancarty—curse her!”

“You are mistaken, my man,” said Mackie, understanding Denis’s error, “I was at Secretary Vernon’s when Lord Spencer came in for the warrant. Lady Clancarty has just come from the Tower where she would fain have shared your master’s imprisonment. Her woman here, I doubt not, is as faithful.”

“The saints be praised!” exclaimed Denis piously, “I couldn’t b’lave ill of her ladyship, but whin there’s snake wurrk loike this, yer honor, I’m afther looking fer th’ woman; ’twas a woman, sir, that started in these dalings with th’ ould serpent himself. Me lord’s as good as did now,—woe’s me!”

“Say nothing like that to my lady, I charge you,” said Mackie sharply, “she cannot bear it.”

At the moment, Betty called Denis, having heard Alice’s story and divining his mistake.

“I will forgive you, Denis,” she said, “since it was for my lord’s sake; but you have nearly killed my poor girl with fright and she was only seeking me.”

“Forgive me, your ladyship,” he said humbly, “I can but die fer ye, me poor lord—” he broke down, and Lady Clancarty said no more; she, too, was overcome.

It did not occur to Denis to apologize to the victim of his mistaken vengeance, but when he learned that Lady Clancarty intended to make another attempt to get into the Tower, he joined himself to her party, without asking permission, and followed on, determined to go with her to his master, ignoring Alice’s abhorrence.

It was with this strangely assorted company that Lady Clancarty returned at daybreak to her father’s house. Not to remain, as she told young Mackie, for never again would she dwell under the same roof with the man who had betrayed her husband.

The events of the night, quite as exciting at home as abroad, had made the Earl of Sunderland wakeful, so it happened that he was out of bed when his daughter sought him in his own room. She found him, clad in a great shag gown, sitting in an armchair by the fire, calmly sipping a cup of chocolate, his bland countenance showing no sign of perturbation, no matter what his emotions might have been. Nor did he express any surprise at his daughter’s appearance in her strange guise at that unusual hour. He smiled upon her quite benignly and waved her toward a chair.

“A cup of chocolate, my love,” he said, “you look fatigued.”

Betty looked at him sadly. She knew only too well how hard it was to touch his heart under that polished exterior, if heart he had at all, and she had often doubted it.

“You will not sit down?” he asked with apparent surprise; “you must be tired.”

“I do not wish to rest here,” she replied sadly, “I cannot under the same roof with Spencer,”—she would not call him her brother; “I know you have heard all, sir,” she added, watching him keenly—hoping, fearing; “I have come here to pray your good offices with the king—to ask you to help your own daughter to save her husband from death!”

Lord Sunderland held up his hand deprecatingly.

“My love,” he said, “I feared as much! Pray do not ask the impossible! You know how they hate me in Parliament because I am supposed to have the king’s ear. If I meddle in this they will bring in a bill of attainder,—it is a favorite scheme of theirs,” he added bitterly.

“But, father, they will kill my husband,” cried Betty, “they will behead him for high treason, and he only came here to see me!”

Lord Sunderland smiled and sipped his chocolate, quite unmoved.

“He is a traitor, though, my dear,” he remarked, “and quite a notorious one. My dear Betty, don’t make a scene—you know nothing about the man.”

“He is my husband,” she cried with passionate grief, “is that no tie?”

“I’ve known several fine ladies who did not consider it one,” replied the earl, with a titter, “notably my Lady Shrewsbury the elder.”“An infamous creature, and you know it!” cried Betty, with something of her old spirit, and then she threw herself on her knees beside him; “father, father,” she pleaded, “you were ever kind to me—oh, pity me, help me to save him!”

Sunderland tried to raise her; he even caressed her bowed head. He detested a scene, and he did not know how to manage this beautiful young creature.

“My child,” he said, “this will pass; you do not know him well enough to feel his loss. The marriage was my folly; your release—though doubtless painful and cruel—will be a blessing in disguise.”

Betty recoiled from his touch, her face white.

“I love him,” she declared simply, “his death upon the block would kill me.”

“Tut, tut!” replied her father heartlessly; “we young people always die so easily.”

“I would rather die than find those of my own blood so indifferent to my wretchedness,” cried Betty.

“Perhaps you are indifferent, too,” rejoined the earl; “your mother lies ill now at Windsor.”

“I am sorry,” Betty said, “but I must try to save my husband. Father, father!” she clung to his hand weeping, “if you ever loved me—as an infant, as a child, as a young girl,—do not abandon me now. Oh, help me to save him! Do you not remember when you used to carry me in your arms—your little girl? Oh, you were kind to me, father, kinder than any one else! You will not break my heart now? My mother never cared for me as you did—never caressed me so, never brought me toys. I loved you then, sir, and I love you now. Have you no place in your heart for me—your daughter, your little girl, Elizabeth? Go to the king—you have but to ask; they say he is merciful, and he trusts you. Oh, save Donough!”

Lord Sunderland sighed. “My dear,” he said, “I would gladly help you, but you ask the impossible. I have no power to save a traitor. You know as well as I that even the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended on account of that rogue Bernardi and his accomplices; you know the story of the Fenwick attainder. How can you ask me to risk my head and my family reputation for this Irishman? You fancy you love him, Betty, but ’tis only your fancy. There are other men as brave,” he added, with a smile; “you need not be a widow long.”

Betty sprang to her feet.“You, too, insult me—and you are my father. Oh, I have no father, then, any more—the old, dear memories are but dreams—the hand that caressed my childish head can deal me such a blow as this! Ah, it breaks my heart! Alas, there is no earthly hope!”

Lord Sunderland poured out another cup of chocolate.

“No,” he replied calmly, “not for Clancarty. Really, my dear, I must be firm, I cannot and I will not risk my reputation, perhaps my life, for—” he shrugged his shoulders, “a Jacobite rogue.”

She said nothing, but she gave him a look so eloquent that he shrank a little, with all his effrontery, as she turned to leave the room. At the door she paused and waved her hand to him with a gesture of infinite sadness.

“Farewell, father,” she said softly, “farewell! I loved you—I love you still—and I forgive you—as I pray to be forgiven. I go, your daughter no longer—since you disown Clancarty’s wife. I have no home, no father—only my husband! Farewell, farewell!”

He heard the low sound of her weeping as she went out, her head bowed and her whole beautiful young figure full of dejection. She felt herself an outcast.