The Knight of the Golden Melice Part 44

"Am I at a confessional," demanded the lady, "that I am bound to expose the secrets of my soul?"

"If, madam," said Endicott, "you are familiar with the popish device, practice will enable you to answer the more glibly."

"Have pity upon me, gentlemen," said the lady. "I am quite deject and wretched. Take not advantage of your power to humiliate me into the dust."

"The question doth still remain unanswered," exclaimed Dudley, looking at Winthrop.

"Be not hasty, Master Deputy," said Winthrop. "Give the gentlewoman time to frame her answers."

"I ever liked a quick and unpremeditated response," said Endicott. "It is more like to savor of the truth."

"Madam," said Winthrop, "we await your reply."

"How can I make answer thereto?" she said; "for what know I of the private motions of the mind of Sir Christopher?"

"At least, you can tell the purpose wherefor you came?"

"It was with no evil intent. I had no motive wherefor I need be ashamed before G.o.d or man."

"Then why hesitate to avow it?"

"I came influenced by like motives to those which have brought others to this land."

"Know you aught of a report that the father of this Sir Christopher did disinherit him, by reason of his long-continued travels in various parts of Europe?"

"Supposing him to be dead," said the lady; "I cannot deny it, and therefore will not."

"What know you of any wife or wives he may have had?"

"I know nothing of them."

"What!" interrupted Dudley: "hath he not confessed unto thee that he married a wife on his travels, from whom he was divorced, and that she is long since dead?"

"Ye do strive to put words into my mouth, and to entangle me in my talk," said the lady. "Call you this justice?"

"We are the interrogators, madam," said Dudley. Looking at Winthrop, he saw that the Governor had fallen back in his seat, with his eyes cast upon the floor, and was silent, as if tired of his part of the examination, and willing to relinquish it to others. Observing this, the Deputy proceeded.

"May it please you, madam, to answer the question?"

"Heaven help me," she said. "My poor brain is so bewildered that I hardly know what it is."

"Thou hast a treacherous memory," answered Dudley; "but I will repeat it. It was concerning certain confessions about this Gardiner's wife."

"What confessions?" said the lady.

"Prevaricate not, nor think to blind me," he answered. "The facts are of public notoriety, and it will not profit to deny them."

"If I deny them I am not to be believed, and the denial would only bring down upon my head additional insult; then why tempt so hard a fate? Tell me what you would have me say, and I will endeavor to conform to your wishes."

"Woman!" said Dudley, sternly, "trifle not. Answer me--aye, or nay."

"Thou hast thine answer," said the lady, with some spirit, as if goaded into resistance by the severity of the treatment.

"I am content," said Dudley. "Thou knowest that falsehood were in vain."

"Madam," now took up Endicott the word, "we have not as yet been favored with your name."

"It is Geraldine De Vaux."

"Hast never another?"

"What mean you, sir!" she exclaimed, with a startled air. "What other name?"

"I mean, plainly--is not thy name Mary Grove?"

At the question, the lady, unable longer to control herself, burst into tears. Quickly recovering herself, however, and drying her eyes, she said:

"The wicked man who first insulted me with the name and the infamy connected therewith is dead. Dread ye not a like judgment on yourselves?"

"Thou dost ill to remind us," observed an a.s.sistant, "that thou art, according to thine own opinion, in some sort, a cause of the death of our brother, Spikeman, and to threaten us with his fate."

"I threatened not. I did but repel a wrongful accusation," said the lady, more humbly.

"Yet dost thou not deny the name?" persisted Endicott.

"If it availed, I would deny it; but I see that ye are all leagued together to persecute me unto the death. Not my will," she sighed, folding her hands and looking up, "but Thine be done!"

"Wilt thou say nothing more touching this subject?" inquired Endicott.

"I desire to say nothing thereupon, except to protest against the injurious constructions you seem determined to put on all that I can say."

"How hath it happened," continued Endicott, "that you have never appeared with the congregation, in the Lord's house?"

"Consider the distance we did live in the woods, and the difficulty of the travel," answered the lady, deprecatingly. "But, has not Sir Christopher attended?"

Endicott paid no attention to the question, but went on.

"What is thy profession of faith?"

"I am a Christian, and most miserable sinner."

"Aye, but Protestant or Catholic?"

"Protestant," answered the lady, with an inflexion of the voice which made it difficult to decide whether the word was intended for an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, a question, or a declaration. "Holy Virgin!" she murmured, so low as not to be overheard, "forgive me this half lie.

Not for my own sake do my lips utter it, and my heart abhors it."

The answer seemed to take Endicott by surprise.

"Have heed to thy words," he said. "We are well advised that this runnigadoe and thyself were, until of late at least, at Rome."