part I am now called upon to play. Then I knew you not. I knew not

your daughter. Oh! that I had never known one, or the other--neither the noble father, nor the--"

"Sir!" interrupted Sir Marmaduke sternly, "I beg you will come to the point. What is this disagreeable communication you would make? You surprise and puzzle me."

"I cannot declare it with my own lips. Noble knight! excuse me from giving speech to it. Here are my orders--too plain--too peremptory. Read them for yourself!"

Sir Marmaduke took hold of the paper--extended to him, apparently, with a trembling hand. The hand trembled that received it. He read:--

"_To ye Captain Richard Scarthe, commanding ye cuirassiers at Bulstrode Park_.

"_It hath come, to ye knowledge of his Majestie that Sir Marmaduke Wade, Knight, hath been guilty of treasonable practices and designs against his Majestie and ye government. Therefore Captain Scarthe is hereby commanded to arrest ye said Sir Marmaduke, and convey him to ye Tower prison, there to await trial by Star Chamber, or such other Court as may be deemed sufficient for ye crime charged_.

"_And Captain Scarthe is moreover enjoined and commanded by his Majestie to lose no time in carrying out ye said command of his Majestie, but that he proceed to its execution on ye receipt of these presents_.

"_Given at my Palace, Whitehall_.

"_Carolus Rex_."

"I am your prisoner, then?" said Sir Marmaduke, folding up the paper, and returning it to the cuirassier captain.

"Not mine, Sir Marmaduke. Alas! not mine, but the king's."

"And where am I to be taken? But I forget. I need not have asked."

"The place is mentioned in the despatch."

"The time too!"

"I regret it is so," rejoined Scarthe, with a pretence of being pained in the performance of his duty. "By this document you will perceive, that my orders are peremptory."

"I presume, I shall be permitted to take leave of my family?"

"It grieves me to the heart, Sir Marmaduke, to inform you that my instructions are painfully stringent. Even that has been made a part of them."

"Then I am not to bid farewell to my children, before parting with them--perhaps, for ever?"

"Do not talk thus, sir," said Scarthe, with a show, of profound sympathy. "There must be a misunderstanding. Some enemy has been abusing you to the ear of the king. Let us hope it will be nothing serious in the end. I wish it were otherwise; but I am instructed in a confidential despatch--that, after making known the order for your arrest, I am not to permit any communication between you and your friends--even the members of your own family--_except in my presence_."

"In your presence be our parting then. Can I summon my children hither?"

"Certainly, Sir Marmaduke. Alas! alas! that I am compelled to be the witness of such a sad spectacle."

Scarthe truly characterised the scene that followed, by calling it a sad spectacle. Such it was--too sad to be described: the cuirassier captain appearing as much affected as any of those who assisted at it!

In an hour after, Sir Marmaduke Wade--in the custody of a cuirassier guard--might have been seen passing out of Bulstrode Park, on his way to that famous, or rather infamous, receptacle of political prisoners--the Tower of London.