"I would not weary Your Majesty with it all; but the truth is that the fellow Dangerfield, who came after me here, came yesterday with a magistrate and near a dozen men, to Hare Street to take me. I eluded them, and came to London." "You eluded them! How was that?" Well; I told him as shortly as I could; and he laughed outright when I came to my Cousin Dolly's part in it. "Why: that was very wittily done!" he said. "The minx!" I did not much like that; but I could not find fault with the King. "And I was at Tyburn this morning, Sir." "What! At Tyburn!" "At Tyburn, Sir; and I was so sick at heart at what I saw there--five of Your Majesty's most faithful servants murdered in the name of justice, that I would not have cared greatly if I had been hanged with them." His face darkened a little; but not with anger at me. "It is a bloody business, as I have said," he said gently. "But come!--it is to France that you go." "There is as good as any other place," I said, "so I be out of the kingdom. I have estates there, too." "But to France will suit very well," said the King. "For it is to France that I designed to send you. I have plenty of couriers who can take written messages, and I have plenty of men who can talk--some think, too much; but I have no one at hand at this moment whom I can send to Court, and who will acquit himself well there, and that can take a message too--none, that is, that is not occupied. What do you say, Mr. Mallock? Would a couple of months there please you?" Here then was the time for my announcement; for I knew that if I did not make it then I should make it never. I stood up; and my heart beat thickly. "Sir," I said. "Six months ago I would have run anywhere to serve you. But in six months many things have happened; and I cannot serve a Prince any more who cannot keep his word even to save the innocent. I had best be gone again to Rome, I think, and see what they can give me there. I am sick of England, which I once loved so much." It was those very words--or others very like them that I said. I do not know where I got the courage to say them, for my life lay altogether in the King's hand: a word from him, or even silence, and I should have kicked my heels that night in Newgate, and a week or two later in the air, on a charge of being in with the Jesuits in their plot. Yet I said them; for I could say nothing else. His Majesty's face turned black as thunder as I began; and when I was done it was all stiff with pride. "That is your mind, Mr. Mallock, then?" he said. "That is my mind, Sir," I answered him. And then a change went over his face once more. God knows why he relented; I think it may have been that he had somewhat of a fancy for me, and remembered how I had pleased him and tried to serve him. And when he spoke, it was very gently indeed.