"The scoundrel! It was he! He has deluded us most handsomely. He was in Louis' pay, and Louis has a use for him! I'll slit the knave's throat if I get at him." "I pray your Grace's leave to be the first man at him." "In truth I'm much obliged to you, my Lord Carford," said I to myself under the window. "There's no use in going to Deal," cried Monmouth. "Oh, I wish I had the fellow here! She's gone, Carford; God's curse on it, she's gone! The prettiest wench at Court! Louis has captured her. 'Fore heaven, if only I were a King!" "Heaven has its own times, sir," said Carford insidiously. But the Duke, suffering from disappointed desire, was not to be led to affairs of State. "She's gone," he exclaimed again. "By God, sooner than lose her, I'd have married her." This speech made me start. She was near him; what if she had been as near him as I, and had heard those words? A pang shot through me, and, of its own accord, my hand moved to my sword-hilt. "She is beneath your Grace's station. The spouse of your Grace may one day be----" Carford interrupted himself with a laugh, and added, "What God wills." "So may Anne Hyde," exclaimed the Duke. "But I forget. You yourself had marked her." "I am your Grace's humble servant always," answered Carford smoothly. Monmouth laughed. Carford had his pay, no doubt, and I trust it was large; for he heard quietly a laugh that called him what King Louis had graciously proposed to make of me. I am glad when men who live by dirty ways are made to eat dirt. "And my father," said the Duke, "is happy. She is gone, Quérouaille stays; why, he's so enamoured that he has charged Nell to return to London to-day, or at the latest by to-morrow, lest the French lady's virtue should be offended." At this both laughed, Monmouth at his father, Carford at his King. "What's that?" cried the Duke an instant later. Now what disturbed him was no other than a most imprudent exclamation wrung from me by what I heard; it must have reached them faintly, yet it was enough. I heard their swords rattle and their spurs jingle as they sprang to their feet. I slipped hastily behind the cottage. But by good luck at this instant came other steps. As the Duke and Carford ran to the door, the owner of the cottage (as I judged him to be) walked up, and Carford cried: "Ah, the fisherman! Come, sir, we'll make him show us the nearest way. Have you fed the horses, fellow?" "They have been fed, my lord, and are ready," was the answer.