My ministry here is ended; you are
free--a sovereign Princess, at the head of a gallant army, surrounded
by valiant barons--My service could avail you no farther, but might
well prejudice you; your fortune now rests upon men's hearts and men's
swords. May they prove as trusty as the faith of women!"
"You will not leave us, mother," said the Queen--"you whose practices
in our favour were so powerful, who dared so many dangers, and wore so
many disguises, to blind our enemies and to confirm our friends--you
will not leave us in the dawn of our reviving fortunes, ere we have
time to know and to thank you?"
"You cannot know her," answered Magdalen Graeme, "who knows not
herself--there are times, when, in this woman's frame of mine, there
is the strength of him of Gath--in this overtoiled brain, the wisdom
of the most sage counsellor--and again the mist is on me, and my
strength is weakness, my wisdom folly. I have spoken before princes
and cardinals--ay, noble Princess, even before the princes of thine
own house of Lorraine; and I know not whence the words of persuasion
came which flowed from my lips, and were drunk in by their ears.--And
now, even when I most need words of persuasion, there is something
which chokes my voice, and robs me of utterance."
"If there be aught in my power to do thee pleasure," said the Queen,
"the barely naming it shall avail as well as all thine eloquence."
"Sovereign Lady," replied the enthusiast, "it shames me that at this
high moment something of human frailty should cling to one, whose vows
the saints have heard, whose labours in the rightful cause Heaven has
prospered.
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