pardoned.

Cavendish presently took his leave, and carried the unwilling
Babington off with him, rightly divining that the family would wish
to make their arrangements alone. To Richard's relief, Babington had
brought him no private message, and to Cicely's disappointment, there
was no addition in sympathetic ink to her letter, though she scorched
the paper brown in trying to bring one out. The Scottish Queen was
much too wary to waste and risk her secret expedients without
necessity.

To Richard and Susan this was the real resignation of their foster-
child into the hands of her own parent. It was true that she would
still bear their name, and pass for their daughter, but that would be
only so long as it might suit her mother's convenience; and instead
of seeing her every day, and enjoying her full confidence (so far as
they knew), she would be out of reach, and given up to influences,
both moral and religious, which they deeply distrusted; also to a
fate looming in the future with all the dark uncertainty that brooded
over all connected with Tudor or Stewart royalty.

How much good Susan wept and prayed that night, only her pillow knew,
not even her husband; and there was no particular comfort when my
Lady Countess descended on her in the first interval of fine weather,
full of wrath at not having been consulted, and discharging it in all
sorts of predictions as to Cis's future. No honest and loyal husband
would have her, after being turned loose in such company; she would
be corrupted in morals and manners, and a disgrace to the Talbots;
she would be perverted in faith, become a Papist, and die in a
nunnery beyond sea; or she would be led into plots and have her head