"May they ever be so!" said Warwick, who, on seeing his daughter's
state, had advanced hastily to the dais; and, moved by the king's
words, his late speech, the evils that surrounded his throne, the
gentleness shown to the beloved Anne, forgetting resentment and
ceremony alike, he held out his mailed hand. The king, as he resigned
Anne to her mother's arms, grasped with soldierly frankness, and with
the ready wit of the cold intellect which reigned beneath the warm
manner, the hand thus extended, and holding still that iron gauntlet
in his own ungloved and jewelled fingers, he advanced to the verge of
the dais, to which, in the confusion occasioned by Anne's swoon, the
principal officers had crowded, and cried aloud,--

"Behold! Warwick and Edward thus hand in hand, as they stood when the
clarions sounded the charge at Towton! and that link what swords
forged on a mortal's anvil can rend or sever?"

In an instant every knee there knelt; and Edward exultingly beheld
that what before had been allegiance to the earl was now only homage
to the king.




CHAPTER IX.

WEDDED CONFIDENCE AND LOVE--THE EARL AND THE PRELATE--THE PRELATE AND
THE KING--SCHEMES--WILES--AND THE BIRTH OF A DARK THOUGHT DESTINED TO
ECLIPSE A SUN.

While, preparatory to the banquet, Edward, as was then the daily