A sound of hoofs behind made the franklin turn his head, and he saw a
goodly troop, armed to the teeth, emerge from the earl's house and
follow the lead of Marmaduke. Meanwhile Warwick was closeted with
Montagu.

Worldly as the latter was, and personally attached to Edward, he was
still keenly alive to all that touched the honour of his House; and
his indignation at the deadly insult offered to his niece was even
more loudly expressed than that of the fiery earl.

"To deem," he exclaimed, "to deem Elizabeth Woodville worthy of his
throne, and to see in Anne Nevile the only worthy to be his leman!"

"Ay!" said the earl, with a calmness perfectly terrible, from its
unnatural contrast to his ordinary heat, when but slightly chafed,
"ay! thou sayest it! But be tranquil; cold,--cold as iron, and as
hard! We must scheme now, not storm and threaten--I never schemed
before! You are right,--honesty is a fool's policy! Would I had
known this but an hour before the news reached me! I have already
dismissed our friends to their different districts, to support King
Edward's cause--he is still king,--a little while longer king! Last
night, I dismissed them--last night, at the very hour when--O God,
give me patience!" He paused, and added in a low voice, "Yet--yet--
how long the moments are how long! Ere the sun sets, Edward, I trust,
will be in my power!"

"How?"

"He goes, to-day, to the More,--he will not go the less for what hath