The author was delighted. It was in vain that Richard Burbage shook his head and indulged in all manner of dark prophecy. Here was the perfect _Rosalind_. Besides, there lay behind this project a higher and deeper motive than even the pleasuring of the first lady in the land. Never for an instant was there absent from a noble and humane mind an intense desire to serve these hapless children of destiny. William Shakespeare was determined at all hazards to arouse the Queen’s interest on their behalf, and if possible to excite her pity. Yet none knew better than this supreme judge of human kind the peril and the difficulty of such a task. The Queen was a woman of dangerous and vindictive temper. But Shakespeare was pledged to do all that lay in his power to save the lives of these fugitives. Burbage and Kemp and Heming, and others of his colleagues, might be full of alarm for the consequences likely to attend his interference, but they were powerless to turn him from his purpose. The matter had become a point of honor with him now. In accordance with the promise made to Gervase, Shakespeare kept himself fully informed in regard to Sir John Feversham. On the morning following his return to London, the playwright went to Greenwich to the Queen’s palace, and there sought an interview with a man with whom he was on terms of intimacy, who held high office in the Royal Household. From him he learned that the Constable was held a close prisoner in the Tower, that the Court of Star Chamber had condemned him already to the block, but that there was good reason to believe the sentence would not be carried out for another week at least, since Cecil, the Queen’s all-powerful minister, felt it was not a case for undue haste. The high official with whom William Shakespeare conferred shook his head sadly over the whole matter. It was very ugly, he said, and was strongly inclined to deprecate the player’s interest in it. He gave him a word of advice. Let him dismiss the subject from his thoughts as soon as possible. It was one of those dark things in which no man who set a value upon his life and liberty could afford to concern himself. The man to whom this excellent advice was given well knew that it was sound enough. But he was pledged too deeply; besides, he was not a man to count the cost. He bore the news back to Gervase, who was fretting out his heart in his hiding-place in the player’s lodging on the Bankside, and told him he could possess his soul in patience, at least, until Thursday. The three intervening days were fraught with much anxiety for Shakespeare. The fate of the new comedy hung in the balance. The absence of Parflete from the cast was felt by all, except the author himself, to be an irreparable blow to its prospects. And the announcement that the all-important part of _Rosalind_ was to be intrusted to one who had absolutely no experience of the theater filled the other players with dismay.