shall proceed to Durham if I am king," answered James, with his
usual weak-headed obstinacy.

"I make no doubt of her obedience," answered the doctor.

"Obedience is what I require," replied the king. "That given, I will do
more for her than she expects."

He consented, in the end, that she should remain a month at Highgate,
under confinement, at the end of which time she should proceed to
Durham. The month passed. She wrote a letter to the king which procured
her a second month's respite. But that time, too, passed on, and the day
fixed for her further journey approached.

The lady now showed none of the wild grief which she had at first
displayed. She was resigned to her fate, she said, and manifested a
tender sorrow which won the hearts of her keepers, who could not but
sympathize with a high-born lady thus persecuted for what was assuredly
no crime, if even a fault.

At heart, however, she was by no means so tranquil as she seemed. Her
communications with Seymour had secretly continued, and the two had
planned a wildly-romantic project of escape, of which this seeming
resignation was but part. The day preceding that fixed for her departure
arrived. The lady had persuaded an attendant to aid her in paying a last
visit to her husband, whom she declared she must see before going to her
distant prison. She would return at a fixed hour. The attendant could
wait for her at an appointed place.

This credulous servant, led astray, doubtless, by sympathy with the
loving couple, not only consented to the request, but assisted the lady
in assuming an elaborate disguise.

"She drew," we are told, "a pair of large French-fashioned hose or
trousers over her petticoats, put on a man's doublet or coat, a peruke
such as men wore, whose long locks covered her own ringlets, a black
hat, a black coat, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side.
Thus accoutred, the Lady Arabella stole out with a gentleman about three
o'clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a mile and a half when
they stopped at a post-inn, where one of her confederates was waiting
with horses; yet she was so sick and faint that the hostler who held her
stirrup observed that the gentleman could hardly hold out to London."

But the "gentleman" grew stronger as she proceeded. The exercise of
riding gave her new spirit. Her pale face grew rosy; her strength
increased; by six o'clock she reached Blackwall, where a boat and
servants were waiting. T