heart; and as the earl bent over the wan, thin hand resigned to his
lips, a tear upon its surface out-sparkled all the jewels that it
wore.

"Yet no," continued the earl (impatient, as proud men are, to hurry
from repentance to atonement, for the one is of humiliation and the
other of pride),--"yet no, my liege, not now do I crave thy pardon.
No; but when begirt, in the halls of thine ancestors, with the peers
of England, the victorious banner of Saint George waving above the
throne which thy servant hath rebuilt,--then, when the trumpets are
sounding thy rights without the answer of a foe; then, when from shore
to shore of fair England the shout of thy people echoes to the vault
of heaven,--then will Warwick kneel again to King Henry, and sue for
the pardon he hath not ignobly won!

"Alack, sir," said the king, with accents of mournful yet half-
reproving kindness, "it was not amidst trump and banners that the Son
of God set mankind the exemplar and pattern of charity to foes. When
thy hand struck the spurs from my heel, when thou didst parade me
through the booting crowd to this solitary cell, then, Warwick, I
forgave thee, and prayed to Heaven for pardon for thee, if thou didst
wrong me,--for myself, if a king's fault had deserved a subject's
harshness. Rise, Sir Earl; our God is a jealous God, and the attitude
of worship is for Him alone."

Warwick rose from his knee; and the king, perceiving and
compassionating the struggle which shook the strong man's breast, laid
his hand on the earl's shoulder, and said, "Peace be with thee!--thou
hast done me no real harm. I have been as happy in these walls as in
the green parks of Windsor; happier than in the halls of state or in