"

"Then let her choose where she will," cried Wendot, proudly and hotly.
"Think you I would wed one whose heart was given elsewhere? Take back
your pledge -- think of it no more. If the day comes when I may come to
her free and unfettered, and see if she has any regard for me, good. I
will come. But so long as you hold that peril menaces my path, I will
not ask her even to think of me. Let her forget. I will not bind her by
a word. It shall be as if those words had never passed betwixt us."

Lord Montacute scarce knew if regret, relief, or admiration were the
feeling uppermost in his mind, as the youth he believed so worthy of his
fair daughter, and perhaps not entirely indifferent to her dawning
charms, thus frankly withdrew his claim upon her hand. It seems strange
to us that any one should be talking and thinking so seriously of
matrimony when the girl was but fourteen and the youth three years her
senior; but in those days marriages were not only planned but
consummated at an absurdly early age according to our modern notions,
and brides of fifteen and sixteen were considered almost mature. Many
young men of Wendot's age would be seriously seeking a wife, and
although no such thought had entered his head until he had seen Gertrude
again, it cannot be denied that the idea had taken some hold upon him
now, or that he did not feel a qualm of pain and sorrow at thus yielding
up one bright hope just when the task he had taken upon himself seemed
to be clouding his life with anxiety and peril.

"Boy," said Lord Montacute, "I cannot forget what thou hast done nor
what she owes to thee. I love thee well, and would fain welcome thee as
a son; but my love for her bids me wait till we see what is the result
of this office thou hast taken on thyself. Thou hast acted rightly and
nobly, but in this world trouble often seems to follow the steps of
those who strive most after the right. If thine own life, thine own
possessions, are to pay the forfeit if thy brethren fall away into
rebellion -- and Edward, though a just man and kind, can be stern to
exact the uttermost penalty when he is angered or defied -- then
standest thou in sore peril, peril from which I would shield my maid.
Wherefore --"

"Nay, say no more -- say no more. I comprehend it all too well," replied
Wendot, not without a natural though only momentary feeling of
bitterness at the thought of what this pledge was already costing him,
but his native generosity an