This I did like a man in a dream, for a great silence had fallen upon the king's palace, and everything appeared grim and ghostly. He led me through long corridors, and tortuous ways, so that without a guide I doubt if I could ever have found my way back to the room from which I had come. Presently, however, I heard the sound of distant laughter, and the noise of songsters, then as some intervening wall kept these sounds from reaching me, I passed by an open window, and heard the nightingales singing amongst the trees close by. The lackey spoke no word, neither good nor bad, to me. I thought he looked sleepy, and would gladly have gone to his rest. Perhaps this was true, for it was rumoured that the king kept strange hours, and expected peculiar service at the hands of his servingmen. Presently I stood in a little ante-chamber, where I was bidden to wait until it was the king's pleasure to see me, and here I waited I should think a full hour. The first part of the time was weary enough, but the second part passed like a flash of light, and this was because, even although I had tried not to listen, I had to hear that which interested me past words. Evidently I was close to the apartment where the king was, for every word he spoke reached me with great plainness; but it was not his voice which thrilled my heart, it was anothers, as I shall soon have to tell. "I pray thy pardon, pretty maid," I heard Charles say. "I know thou hast had a long day's ride, and must be aweary, but I felt I could not sleep until I had speech with thee again." "I have nothing to say to Your Majesty," replied the voice of Constance. "But I have much to say to thee, fair Constance. It is not oft that even a king beholds one so fair, or hears one whose speech is so pleasing. Besides, it will be to thine interest to listen to me, and to regard my proposals favourably." The king's voice was, as I thought, thick with much wine, and I fancied I could see the evil leer in his black beady eyes as he spoke. "I have brought thee here to-night," he went on, "so that I may tell thee of many things. And first, I desire that thou shouldst tell me what thou didst refuse but a few hours since. Where is this Puritan sister of thine?" "And if I told Your Majesty?" "Ah, pretty Constance, if it had been thee--well I fear thou wouldst have too lenient a judge. But thy sister is the wife of Denman, a man whose immediate arrest I have commanded. A bitter, sour-faced, lying Puritan, a man who took a leading part in the murder of my father. And this sister of thine, well she tried to kill the man who sought to bring me back to my kingdom. That is not easy to forgive. Had it been thy little hand which would have done this, I should e'en have laughed at Monk's dour face, and forgiven. And yet I must not forget. Thou hast shielded thy sister; thou hast kept her from punishment, and therefore--well, unless--but let me think----"