Gervase laid the book down on the counterpane and rose with a shy smile. The lovers greeted their friend, to whom they owed everything, with shining eyes. The player’s apology for so unseasonably disturbing them was humorously tender, but such news admitted no delay. “I am the bearer of great tidings,” the player cried. “All is forgiven.” There came a silence, and then “All!” gasped Anne. “All,” said the player. “All is forgiven you by Gloriana in her clemency.” Again a silence. “But my father!” The three simple words seemed almost to tear at the heart of the poet. “All is forgiven him also.” That also was true. “But why does he not come to me? Is it that he will not?” Alas, that was a question the poet dare not answer. The plain truth was he knew not in what sort to answer it. As soon as the Queen had been apprised of Sir John Feversham’s complete innocence, almost her first act had been to order his immediate release from the Tower. But even when a free pardon had been granted to him and he was once more at liberty and no longer in danger of losing his head, he was yet a very unhappy man. He was as one completely overborne by the sense of his daughter’s crime. Even as she lay in her extremity, he could not be induced to visit her, nor even to speak of her. And now that the awful force of her suffering was past, and wan and spent, yet with mind at last clear and reasonable, poor Anne waited in vain for her father’s coming. A powerful nature had been wounded to the depths. It was not the act of filial treachery that Sir John Feversham found unforgivable; it was the disloyalty to the august sovereign whom he had served all his days that he found impossible to overpass. Now it chanced that one man, and he the most devoted among all the friends of Mistress Anne had had the wit to realize the why and wherefore of this. Shakespeare saw clearly that even if the outraged father had been able to forgive, the loyal and devoted subject yet found it impossible so to do. And no sooner did this tender-hearted maker of plays realize that such was the case than daring greatly he went to the Queen. “That is a matter, Master Shakespeare, in which we may never be able to move,” was the Queen’s answer. “And yet perhaps....” For the present, the player felt he must rest content with that. In the meantime, the author of the tragical history of “Romeo and Juliet” had to suffer the entreaties of this pair of young lovers that he should remain and read to them a portion of that wondrous tale of love which he had given to the world in the spring tide of his own youth. The poet was not proof against the importunities of these children of destiny whom he had come to love with a father’s tenderness. Therefore he took his book presently from the hands of Gervase and sat at the bed foot. In his low and clear voice he began to read the immortal story.