[65] It was not without reluctance that the stanch royalist crossed the hated threshold of the deserter.

He was repaid for his effort by the edifying spectacle of such an agony of repentance as he had never before seen.

"Will you," said Marlborough, "be my intercessor with the King?
Will you tell him what I suffer?
My crimes now appear to me in their true light; and I shrink with horror from the contemplation.

The thought of them is with me day and night.

I sit down to table; but I cannot eat.