d be rid of thee as
'bide in a world vexed with thy governance."

"Custance! Custance!" cried Edward and Isabel in concert.

"Let be, fair Cousins," answered the cool unmoved tones of the King.
"We can make large allowance for our cousin's words--they be but
nature."

This astute man knew how to overlook angry words. And certainly no
words he could have used would have vexed Custance half so much as this
assumption of calm superiority.

"Speak your will, Lady," he quietly added. "To all likelihood it shall
do you some relievance to uncharge your mind after this fashion; and I
were loth to let you of that ease. For us, we are used to hear our
intent misconceived. But all said, hear our pleasure."

Which was as much as to say with contemptuous pity,--Poor captive bird!
beat your wings against the iron bars of your cage as much as you fancy
it; they are iron, after all.

"Fair Cousin," resumed the King, "you must be at this wedding, clad in
your widow's garb; and you must set your hand to the paper which our
cousin Isabel holdeth. Know that if you be obedient, the custody and
marriage of your son, with all lands of your sometime Lord, shall be
yours, and you shall forthwith be set at full liberty, nor word further
spoken touching past offences. But you still refusing, then every rood
of your land is forfeit, and the marriages and custody of all your
childre shall be given unto our fair aunt, the Duchess Dowager of York.
We await your answer."

It was not in words that the answer came at first. Only in an exceeding
bitter cry--

"As of a wild thing taken in a trap,
Which sees the trapper coming through the wood."

Custance saw now the full depth of misery to which she was doomed. The
utmost concession hitherto wrung from her was that she would go to
London and confront the King. And now it was calmly required of her
that she should not only sign away her own fair name, but should
confront Kent himself--should sit a quiet spectator of a ceremony which
would publicly declare the invalidity of her right to bear his name--
should by her own act consign her child to degradation and penury--
should be a witness and a consenting party to the utter destruction of
all her hopes of happiness. She knew that the lark might as well plead
with the iron bars as she with Henry of Bolingbroke. And the penalty of
her refusal was not merely poverty and homelessness. She could have
borne that; indeed, the sentence