"With this restriction, I am willing to sign an order for you."
"Be it as you please, honourable Sir; and take my heartfelt gratitude
for the grace."
Sir Thomas struck a small bell upon the table, and the usher appeared at
the summons.
"Bid the officer in charge of Hugh Calveley attend me," he said.
The man bowed, and departed.
Sir Thomas Lake then turned to the paper which he had just opened before
Aveline's appearance, and was soon so much engrossed by it that he
seemed quite unconscious of her presence. His countenance became
gloomier and more austere as he read on, and an expression of
pain--almost a groan--escaped him. He appeared then to feel sensible
that he had committed an indiscretion, for he laid down the paper, and,
as if forcibly diverting himself from its contents, addressed Aveline.
"What you have said respecting your father's condition of mind," he
observed, "by no means convinces me that it is so unsound as to render
him irresponsible for his actions. It were to put a charitable
construction upon his conduct to say that no one but a madman could be
capable of it; but there was too much consistency in what he has said
and done to admit of such an inference. But for the interposition of
another person he owned that he would have killed the King; and the
disappointment he exhibited, and the language he used, prove such to
have been his fixed intention. His mind may have been disturbed; but
what of that? All who meditate great crimes, it is to be hoped, are not
entirely masters of themselves.
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