utterance, the result of his surprise, as he waved his visiter to a chair. “At that distance, and by this light, I can hardly distinguish the features of the lady who so inopportunely and unceremoniously honours me with her presence.”
Immediately advancing, she threw back her hood, and offering him her hand, said, “It is Alice Heath, the daughter of your friend, General Lisle.”
Cromwell’s rugged countenance expressed the utmost surprise, as he awkwardly strove to assume a courtesy foreign to his manner, and exchange his first ungracious greeting for something of a more cordial welcome.
With exceeding tact, Alice hastened to relieve his embarrassment, by falling back into the chair he had offered, and at once declaring the purpose of her visit.
“General Cromwell,” she began, in a voice sweetly distinct, “you stand high in the eyes of man, not only as a patriot, but a strict and conscientious servant of the Most High. As such, you have been the main instrument in procuring the doom now hanging in awful expectation over the head of him who once tenanted, in the same splendour that now surrounds yourself, the building in which I find you. Methinks his vacation of these princely premises, and your succession thereunto, renders you scarcely capable of being a disinterested advocate for his death—since, by it, you become successor to all the pomp and power formerly his. Have you asked yourself the question whether no motives of self-aggrandizement have tainted this deed of patriotism, or sullied this act of religion?”
“Your language is unwarrantable and unbecoming, madam,” said Cromwell, deadly pale and trembling violently; “it is written—”
“Excuse me,” said Alice, interrupting him; “you think it uncourteous and even impertinent that I should intrude upon you with a question such as I but now addressed to you. But, General Cromwell, a human life is at stake, and that the life of no ordinary being, but the descendant of a race of kings. Nay, hear me out, sir, I beg of you. Charles Stuart is about to die an awful and a
