the threshold; he heard the slow tread of approaching footsteps; the
spaniel uttered a low growl, its eyes sparkling; the door opened, and
the torch borne behind by the squire, and raised aloft so that its
glare threw a broad light over the whole chamber, brought into full
view the dark and haughty countenance of the Earl of Warwick.

The squire, at a gesture from the earl, lighted the sconces on the
wall, the tapers on the table, and quickly vanished. King-maker and
king were alone! At the first sight of Warwick, Henry had turned
pale, and receded a few paces, with one hand uplifted in adjuration or
command, while with the other he veiled his eyes,--whether that this
startled movement came from the weakness of bodily nerves, much
shattered by sickness and confinement, or from the sudden emotions
called forth by the aspect of one who had wrought him calamities so
dire. But the craven's terror in the presence of a living foe was,
with all his meekness, all his holy abhorrence of wrath and warfare,
as unknown to that royal heart as to the high blood of his hero-sire.
And so, after a brief pause, and a thought that took the shape of
prayer, not for safety from peril, but for grace to forgive the past,
Henry VI. advanced to Warwick, who still stood dumb by the threshold,
combating with his own mingled and turbulent emotions of pride and
shame, and said, in a voice majestic even from its very mildness,--

"What tale of new woe and evil hath the Earl of Salisbury and Warwick
come to announce to the poor captive who was once a king?"

"Forgive me! Forgiveness, Henry, my lord,--forgiveness!" exclaimed
Warwick, falling on his knee. The meek reproach; the touching words;
the mien and visage altered, since last beheld, from manhood into age;
the gray hairs and bended form of the king, went at once to that proud