After a brief pause, Gardiner arose, saying, “The conference is ended, daughter. You are at liberty to depart. If I listen longer,” he added, in an undertone to his companions, “I shall be convinced against my will.”
“Then you acknowledge your defeat, my lord,” said Jane, proudly.
“I acknowledge that it is in vain to make any impression on you,” answered the bishop.
“Jane,” cried her husband, advancing towards her, and throwing himself on his knees before her, “you have conquered, and I implore your forgiveness. I will never change a religion of which you are so bright an ornament.”
“This is indeed a victory,” replied Jane, raising him and clasping him to her bosom. “And now, my lord,” she added to Gardiner, “conduct us to prison or the scaffold as soon as you please. Death has no further terrors.”
After a parting embrace, and an assurance from her husband, that he would now remain constant in his faith, Jane was removed by her guard to the Brick Tower, while Lord Guilford was immured in one of the cells adjoining the room in which the conference had taken place.
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CHAPTER XI
HOW CUTHBERT CHOLMONDELEY REVISITED THE STONE KITCHEN; AND HOW HE WENT IN SEARCH OF CICELY
CUTHBERT CHOLMONDELEY, who, it may be remembered, attended Lord Guilford Dudley, when he was brought from Sion House to the Tower, was imprisoned at the same time as that unfortunate nobleman, and lodged in the Nun’s Bower—a place of confinement so named, and situated, as already mentioned, in the upper story of the Coal Harbour Tower. Here he was detained until after the Duke of Northumberland’s execution, when, though he was not restored to liberty, he was allowed the range of the fortress. The first use he made of his partial freedom was to proceed to the Stone Kitchen, in the hope of meeting with Cicely; and his bitter disappointment may be conceived on finding that she was not there, nor was anything known of her by her foster-parents.
“Never since the ill-fated Queen Jane, whom they now call a usurper, took her into her service, have I set eyes upon her,” said Dame Potentia, who was thrown into an agony of affliction by the sight of Cholmondeley. “Hearing from old Gunnora Braose, that when her unfortunate mistress was brought back a captive to the Tower she had been left at Sion House, and thinking she would speedily return, I did not deem it necessary to send for her; but when a week had elapsed, and she did not make her appearance, I desired her father to go in search of her. Accordingly, he went to Sion House, and learnt that she had been fetched away, on the morning after Queen Jane’s capture, by a man who stated he had come from us. This was all Peter could learn. Alas! Alas!”
“Did not your suspicions alight on Nightgall?” asked Cholmondeley.
“Ay, marry, did they,” replied the pantler’s wife; “but he averred he had never quitted the Tower. And as I had no means of proving it upon him, I could do nothing more than tax him with it.”
“He still retains his office of jailer, I suppose?” said Cholmondeley.
“Of a surety,” answered Potentia; “and owing to Simon Renard, who, you may have heard, is her majesty’s right hand, he has become a person of greater authority than ever, and affects to look down upon his former friends.”
“He cannot look down upon me at all events,” exclaimed a loud voice behind them. And turning at the sound, Cholmondeley beheld the bulky figure of Gog darkening the doorway.
A cordial greeting passed between Cholmondeley and the giant, who in the same breath congratulated him upon his restoration to liberty, and condoled with him on the loss of his mistress.
“In the midst of grief we must perforce eat,” observed the pantler, “and our worthy friends, the giants, as well as Xit, have often enlivened our board, and put care to flight. Perhaps you are not aware that Magog has been married since we last saw you.”
“Magog married!” exclaimed Cholmondeley, in surprise.
“Ay, indeed!” rejoined Gog, “more persons than your worship have been astonished by it. And shall I let you into a secret—if ever husband was henpecked, it is my unfortunate brother. Your worship complains of losing your mistress. Would to heaven he had had any such luck! And the worst of it is that before marriage she was accounted the most amiable of her sex.”