in spite of alice’s warning, in spite of the deadly peril that surrounded him, clancarty lingered at his wife’s side. it was hard to say farewell, hard to leave her, and though her heart was filled with misgivings and anxieties, lady betty could not urge him to go; indeed, she clung to him, weeping at the thought of a parting that involved such perils and hardships for him and such sorrow for her. moreover, there was much to talk of and to plan. they did not mean to be separated long; she was to go with him to the continent or to ireland, and there were a thousand details to arrange, a thousand hopes and fears to strengthen or allay—and they were lovers, and when did lovers ever learn to watch the tedious hand of time?
the ball at lord bridgewater’s was forgotten, spencer was forgotten, all the world, in fact, while betty—lovely with happiness, glowing[pg 236] and smiling in her splendid gown—thought of no one but her husband, and desired no admiration but his.
“ah, my darling,” he whispered, looking down at her as her face lay against his breast, “can you give up all this?” he touched her lace and jewels, “and this?” he pointed at the luxurious room, “and all you have and are—to follow a poor exile into poverty and obscurity?”
she smiled divinely.
“to follow my beloved even to the ends of the earth,” she said, “‘for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part,’” she murmured tenderly.
“amen!” he said, and laid his face against her soft hair, moved—how deeply she could not know; her utter trust, her fondness touched him to the heart. this splendid woman, with every gift of nature and of fortune, willing to renounce all for him—he held her close and his eyes dimmed.
“ah,” he said, “’tis worth living, dear heart, for your sake! when i thought you scorned my poverty and would rather be the wife of savile than mine, i cared not if i died—but now! ah, betty, you could make a dungeon paradise.”
[pg 237]“nay,” she replied, “it shall not be a dungeon, but a home, my husband, somewhere—even where these quarrelling kings cannot disturb our paradise. faith, my politics grow strangely mixed,” she added, with a smile.
“love knows no politics,” he answered, smiling too, “you and i shall not quarrel over our principles, sweetheart.”
as he spoke, the door was thrown open and alice ran into the room with a ghastly face.
“oh, my lady,” she cried, “there’s something wrong—i hear strange voices below, there are men upon the stairs! my lord must hide.”
betty sprang to her feet.
“quick!” she cried, “donough, there is the other door!”
“’tis useless,” cried alice; “they come from both sides—i saw them!”
“then i will hide you!” betty cried wildly, catching her husband’s arm.
for an instant he hesitated; he, too, heard the heavy feet in the gallery, then he shook his head.
“no, betty, dear,” he said, “i cannot be hunted like a rat in a hole; i must face them like a man, like your husband.”
she uttered a little cry of despair and clung to him, while alice wrung her hands.
[pg 238]“oh, the window, my lord!” she cried, “there is a balcony!”
“too late, my girl,” lord clancarty replied calmly, the light flashing in his gray eyes, his head erect; “no, no, i’ve never let an enemy see my back—i can’t learn to run now.”
betty looked up at him and caught her breath; here was a man after her own heart. she felt his hand go to his sword and she, too, looked toward the door. they had not even thought of barring it, but it would have been useless, for it was thrown wide open by a sheriff’s deputy, who was followed by a guard of stout yeomen from the tower.
“is donough macarthy, earl of clancarty, here?” demanded the sheriff, fixing his eyes on the earl as he stood there, with his wife clinging to him.
“i am clancarty,” he replied proudly. resistance would have been worse than useless, and he only pressed his dear betty closer to his heart; he knew that separation was inevitable.
“i have a warrant to seize the body of the earl of clancarty and carry him to the tower, on the charge of high treason,” said the officer, producing the parchment and reading the warrant aloud in the king’s name.
[pg 239]“i do not acknowledge the authority of the prince of orange,” said clancarty calmly, “but i must submit to superior numbers,” he added, with a scornful glance at the six stout yeomen who had filed into the room and stood gaping at lady clancarty. “you have arrested me in the apartments of my wife. i came to london solely to see the countess of clancarty, but i will go with you without further protest.”
the officer bowed to lady clancarty.
“i am reluctant to part you, my lord,” he said grimly, “but we have no time to lose; my orders are explicit.”
“you might find a better office, sir,” said lady betty, withering him with a look, and then breaking down when her husband kissed her farewell.
“have comfort, dear heart,” he whispered, though he knew the case was desperate; “bear up for my sake—now!”
but she clung to him in a passion of grief, begging to go with him to the tower until it wrung his heart anew to leave her. even the soldiers glanced away in grim silence, and she was half unconscious when clancarty unclasped her hands from his neck and laid her in alice’s arms.
[pg 240]“care for her, alice,” he said, in a tone of deep but restrained emotion, “guard her tenderly, do not leave her in this hour of trial—for they will tear me from her! my poor darling—my poor wife!”
he lingered to kiss her again, to push the soft hair back from her forehead, and it was only a final order from the sheriff that took him from her side.
the guards had escorted him out at last, or rather he had walked out proudly with them, though his heart was aching for her. they were already at the lower door when lady clancarty, recovering consciousness, sprang up to come face to face with spencer. then the truth flashed upon her and she stood before him with a terrible face.
“you—you betrayed him!” she cried, “you sent those men here to drag him away!”
lord spencer took it as a compliment.
“i did,” he said piously; “i delivered the traitor to his fate; i would do it were he my own flesh and blood. no sacrifice is too great for truth and justice.”
“you hypocrite!” cried lady betty passionately; “you have broken your sister’s heart for the sake of your pride—your[pg 241] politics! you have murdered my husband—my husband!” she wrung her hands in agony.
“i have done my duty,” he replied coldly.
“your duty?” she cried bitterly; “was it then your duty to betray your sister’s husband? to force an officer and his guard into your sister’s rooms—to trample on her tenderest feelings—to mortify and crush her? duty!” she repeated scornfully, “then may no man henceforth do his duty! such virtue is more vile than vice—such courage worse than cowardice! how dare you face me or look at me? an injured woman! i mark your white face, sir, and i marvel at its pallor; it should burn with shame.”
spencer ground his teeth in anger. “you saucy minx,” he said, “how dared you have that man here?”
“how dared i?” she repeated, “how dared i have my husband with me? whom should i have with me if not my husband?”
she paused for breath; her bosom rose and fell, she put her hands to her throat as if she choked. it was a moment before she could speak.
“what have you done?” she went on passionately, her slender figure towering, her eyes[pg 242] on fire; “you have torn him from my arms, you have sent him to his death, but you cannot tear him from my heart! while that beats, while the blood runs through these veins, i will love him—love him! and he is my husband—my husband, do you hear, you coward? i bear his name, i am his, his flesh and blood, his very own—you cannot separate us! even if you kill him, our souls are one; you cannot part them any more than you can rend the sky asunder! i am not your sister—i am clancarty’s wife.”
“shame on you, madam,” said spencer bitterly, his face like ashes, gray and white; “shame on you to declare yourself so passionately enamoured of a jacobite—a reprobate—a—”
“of my husband,” she said, and her low voice cut like a lash.
“your husband,” he mocked; “are you sure that he is your lawful husband? a sneaking rogue who crept to your room by a back-stair—who would not face your family like a man of honor!”
“what insult more have you for me?” she cried; “’tis you who dared not face him; you crept behind him like a coward, you—you judas!”
[pg 243]she caught her breath, her hands at her throat again.
“sit down, madam,” said his lordship coldly; “your fury suffocates you. it will not avail,” he laughed, “to set the rogue free!”
she looked at him strangely.
“are you human?” she asked, “are you like other men?—or some monster, some abortive creature, cast upon the earth to wreck the lives of others? how could any woman marry you? i think you are not human—though we are of the same mother!”
spencer laughed bitterly.
“quite human, elizabeth,” he said sneering, “as human as my termagant sister—as the rogue they are carrying now to the tower, where, i trust, he’ll rest well—and safe.”
she recoiled half way across the room and stared at him wildly, as if her very senses were bewildered.
“to the tower?” she repeated, like a child who had a lesson by rote, “the great gloomy tower yonder?”
“would you have preferred newgate?” my lord asked maliciously, beginning to find some joy in a situation that had not been without humiliation.
[pg 244]“they carry my husband to the tower!” lady betty cried wildly, clasping her hands to her bosom as if to still the tumult there, “and i stand here talking to the judas who betrayed him! go hang yourself, my lord,—surely you cannot want to live,” she went on, mad with her despair; “let me see your face no more. the very air you breathe poisons me. never, never shall the same roof shelter us again! i go, sir, your sister no longer, but the beggar’s wife. i go to share his fate, to starve with him, to die for him or with him! but to see you no more forever and forever!”
she rushed past him, sweeping her skirts aside that they might not so much as touch him, and ran wildly out of the room.
fleeing through the long galleries and down the stairs, in her splendid dress, and heedless of the gaping servants and of the bitter cold she went out, bareheaded, into the night.
