“On the instant, your Majesty,” he replied with a sigh of relief. “That is well. I trust your malady is alleviated, in some measure at least; still I know that sickness has never been a bar to duty with you. Yet I ask no man to do what I am not willing to do myself for the good of the State, and I shall be shortly on the road at your heels.” “Whither, your Majesty?” asked the Earl with falling countenance, for it was to Ireland he desired to journey, and he knew the King had no intention of moving toward the west. “To London, of course; a short stent over bad roads. But if you are ailing and fear the highway, a barge on the river is at your disposal.” “To London!” echoed the Earl, something almost akin to dismay in his tone. “I had hoped your Majesty would order me to Ireland, which I assure your Majesty has been somewhat neglected of late.” “Yes, yes,” exclaimed the King brusquely, “I know your anxiety in that quarter. A man ever thinks that task the most important with which he intimately deals, but my position gives me a view over the whole realm, and the various matters of State assume their just proportions in my eyes; their due relations to each other. Ireland is well enough, but it is the heart and not the limbs of the empire that requires the physicians’ care. Parliament has opened badly, and is like to give trouble unless treated with a firm hand.” The hand of the Earl appeared anything but firm. It wavered as it sought the support of the chair’s arm. “Have I your Majesty’s permission to be seated? I am not well,” Strafford said faintly. “Surely, surely,” cried the King, himself taking a chair. “I am deeply grieved to see you so unwell; but a journey to London is a small matter compared with a march upon Dublin, which is like to have killed you in your present condition.” “Indeed, your Majesty, the smaller journey may well have the more fatal termination,” murmured the Earl; but the King paid no attention to the remark, for his wandering eye now caught sight of a third in the conference, which brought surprised displeasure to his brow. The girl was standing behind the high back of the chair in which she had been seated, in a gloomy angle where the firelight which played so plainly on the King and Strafford did not touch her. “In God’s name, whom have we here? The flippant prophet of the forest, or my eyes deceive me! How comes this girl in my palace, so intimate with my Lord Strafford, who seemed to meet her as a stranger but yesterday?” The slumbering suspicion of Charles was aroused, and he glanced from one to the other in haughty questioning.