“Is it really necessary for me to meet her?” asked Caerleon, anxiously. “I have been hoping you would manage to nip the scheme in the bud without that.” “When you forbade me to mention the matter!” cried Cyril, with natural indignation. “I had plenty of opportunities for telling the King your story, but you had hinted that I should misrepresent it, so I said nothing. Of course I did the wrong thing. Well, I have done all I can, and I am dead beat. Just let me alone, that’s all I want.” He turned over on the sofa and went to sleep, for it was perfectly true that he was very tired after the three days’ ride, while Caerleon stood looking at him in much apprehension and self-reproach. To cover his brother with a rug and send for the Court physician to see him were obviously the only things for the King to do; but when the doctor averred that there was nothing amiss with the patient but fatigue, and prescribed merely rest and mental relaxation, he could not accept the comfort thus conveyed. When Cyril had been roused with much difficulty from the sofa, and persuaded to go to bed, Caerleon went round to the stables to speak to Wright, whom he found engaged in superintending the grooming of one of the horses, which he conceived had been neglected during his absence. “Glad to see you looking so fit, Wright,” said his master, as Wright straightened himself against the wall, and touched his cap. “I was afraid I should find you dead beat. Lord Cyril seems to be tired out.” “Do ’e, your Majesty?” responded Wright. “I ’adn’t noticed it. If you’ll believe me, I think as ’is lordship’s ’avin’ a little joke with you. ’E’s always tryin’ on them sort of games, beggin’ your Majesty’s pardon.” This was added as an afterthought, in response to Caerleon’s look of astonishment, as the King turned on his heel, and walked away in displeasure. Wright was getting disgustingly impudent, he reflected. No doubt too much had been made of him, and he felt that he had a right to put on side, as the only Englishman among the servants, but he must be taught his place. Caerleon was painfully conscious that there was not always a complete unity of aims and agreement as to means between Cyril and himself, but that Wright should venture to notice the fact was insufferable. He should learn that being the King’s fellow-countryman did not necessarily make him his confidant, and a studied repressiveness of manner in addressing him for some days would go far to make him forget that he had been chosen as Cyril’s sole companion on his important mission--an honour which seemed to have encouraged him to presume. And upon this decision Caerleon proceeded to act, to the signal discomfiture of Wright, whose natural enemies the stable-boys asserted themselves unmercifully when they saw that the royal favour had forsaken him.