fection.
The lines to Althea--his sweetheart--were written in prison. She
thought him dead and married some one else. He loved her more than
life,--dost believe in such love, Kate?"

"Aye, why not?--Ah, Sir Julian, hast finished,--who was victor?"

"I am modest, my Lady."

"But never too modest to hold thine own." As she spoke thus to Sir
Julian, the sands of the hour-glass ran out and nine tolled from the
Chapel belfry. Before the bell had ceased, Constance had drawn Cedric
and Julian into a game of cards, she placing herself opposite the
window, and Katherine had stepped into an adjoining passage, and
taking up her camelot cloak, with flying feet and beating heart
hastened to the postern-door and slipped bolts and bars and stood
without in the calm, warm night.

CHAPTER XIV

SERMONS NEW AND OLD

"The reign of Charles the Second seemed to be impregnated with a free
and easy moral atmosphere that engendered lewdness in human product.
It is said by a great historian that Thomas Hobbes had, in language
more precise and luminous than has ever been employed by any other
metaphysical writer, maintained that the will of the prince was the
standard of right and wrong, and that every subject ought to be ready
to profess Popery, Mahometanism, or Paganism, at the royal command.
Thousands who were incompetent to appreciate what was really valuable
in his speculations eagerly welcomed a theory which, while it exalted
the kingly office, relaxed the obligations of morality and degraded
religion into a mere affair of state. Hobbism soon became an almost
essential part of the character of the fine gentleman. All the
lighter kinds of literature were deeply tainted by the prevailing
licentiousness. Poetry stooped to be the pander of every low desire.
Ridicule, instead of putting guilt and error to the blush, turned her
formidable shafts against innocence and truth. The restored Church
contended indeed against the prevailing immorality, but contended
feebly, and with half a heart. It was necessary to the decorum of
her character that she should admonish her erring children, but her
admonitions were given in a somewhat perfunctory manner. Her attention
was elsewhere engaged. Little as the men of mirth and fashion were
disposed to shape their lives according to her precepts, they were yet
ready to fight for her cathedrals and places, for every line of her
rubric and every thread of her vestments. If the debauched
cavalier h