Turning cold at an idea so pregnant with horror, she hastily
passed from the agitating theme to speak of De Valence and the respect
with which he had treated her during her imprisonment. His courtesy
had professed to deny nothing to her wishes except her personal liberty
and any conference with her parents or aunt. Her father's life, he
declared it was altogether out of his power to grant. He might suspend
the sentence, but he could not abrogate it.
"Yes," cried the earl, "though false and inflexible, I must not accuse
him of having been so barbarous in his tyranny as Cressingham. For it
was not until De Valence was taken prisoner that Joanna and I were
divided. Till then we were lodged in decent apartments, but on that
event Cressingham tore us from each other, and threw us into different
dungeons. My sister Janet I never saw since the hour we were separated
in the street of Stirling until the awful moment in which we met on the
roof of this castle-the moment when I expected to behold her and my
wife die before my eyes!"
Helen now learned, for the first time, the base cruelties which had
been exercised on her father and his family since the capture of De
Valence.
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