"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me, and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge and rescue you _vi et armis_." "You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded men for slighter disregard of her authority." "I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions to use all despatch in securing your person." "But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen, I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament." "Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you. Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London, laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff. I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night festivities." "And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very existence, did this for me?" "Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over your Christmas pudding."