By and by Sir Edmund returned, having been making arrangements for Charles’s comfort.  Ordinary prisoners were heaped together and miserably treated, but money could do something, and by application to the High Sheriff, permission had been secured for Charles to occupy a private room, on a heavy fee to the jailor, and for his friends to have access to him, besides other necessaries, purchased at more than their weight in gold.  Sir Edmund brought word that Charles was in good heart; sent love and duty to his father, whom he would welcome with all his soul, but that as Miss Woodford was—­in her love and bravery—­going so soon to London, he prayed that she might be his first visitor that evening.

There was little more to do than to cross the street, and Sir Edmund hurried her through the flagged and dirty yard, and the dim, foul hall, filled with fumes of smoke and beer, where melancholy debtors held out their hands, idle scapegraces laughed, heavy degraded faces scowled, and evil sounds were heard, up the stairs to a nail-studded door, where Anne shuddered to hear the heavy key turned by the coarse, rude-looking warder, only withheld from insolence by the presence of a magistrate.  Her escort tarried outside, and she saw Charles, his rush-light candle gleaming on his gold lace as he wrote a letter to the ambassador to be forwarded by his father.

He sprang up with outstretched arms and an eager smile.  “My brave sweetheart! how nobly you have done.  Truth and trust.  It did my heart good to hear you.”

Her head was on his shoulder.  She wanted to speak, but could not without loosing the flood of tears.

“Faith entire,” he went on; “and you are still striving for me.”

“Princess Anne is—­” she began, then the choking came.

“True!” he said.  “Come, do not expect the worst.  I have not made up my mind to that!  If the ambassador will stir, the King will not be disobliging, though it will probably not be a free pardon, but Hungary for some years to come—­and you are coming with me.”

“If you will have one who might be—­may have been—­your death.  Oh, every word I said seemed to me stabbing you;” and the tears would come now.

“No such thing!  They only showed how true my love is to God and me, and made my heart swell with pride to hear her so cheering me through all.”

His strength seemed to allow her to break down.  She had all along had to bear up the spirits of Sir Philip and Lady Archfield, and though she had struggled for composure, the finding that she had in him a comforter and support set the pent-up tears flowing fast, as he held her close.

“Oh, I did not mean to vex you thus!” she said.