“Will your Majesty be more precise as to the grounds of your complaint?” she invited him challengingly. That checked his wildness. It brought him up with a round turn. His jaw fell, and he stared at her, lost now for words. Of this she took the fullest advantage. “If I am not allowed to receive visits from a man of the Duke of Richmond’s rank, who comes with honourable intentions, then I am a slave in a free country. I know of no engagement that should prevent me from disposing of my hand as I think fit. But if this is not permitted me in your Majesty’s dominions, I do not believe there is any power on earth can prevent me going back to France, and throwing myself into a convent, there to enjoy the peace denied me at this Court.” With that she melted into tears, and his discomfiture was complete. On his knees he begged her forgiveness for the injury he had done her. But Miss was not in a forgiving humour. “If your Majesty would graciously consent to leave me now in peace,” said she, “you would avoid offending by a longer visit those who accompanied or conducted you to my apartments.” She had drawn a bow at a venture but shrewdly, and the shaft went home. Charles rose, red in the face. Swearing he would never speak to her again, he stalked out. Later, however, he considered. If he felt bitterly aggrieved, he must also have realized that he had no just grounds for this, and that in his conduct in Miss Stewart’s room he had been entirely ridiculous. She was rightly resolved against being lightly worn by any man. If anything, the reflection must have fanned his passion. It was impossible, he thought, that she should love that knock-kneed fellow, Richmond, who had no graces either of body or of mind, and if she suffered the man’s suit, it must be, as she had all but said, so that she might be delivered from the persecution to which his Majesty had submitted her. The thought of her marrying Richmond, or, indeed, anybody, was unbearable to Charles, and it may have stifled his last scruple in the matter of the divorce. His first measure next morning was to banish Richmond from the Court. But Richmond had not stayed for the order to quit. The King’s messenger found him gone already.