“I’d not have failed before, but for that suspicious dotard Bayley,” grumbled Verney. “Your lordship bade me see that all was covered.” “Aye, aye. And I bid thee so again. On thy life, leave no footprints by which we may be tracked. Bayley is not the only physician in Oxford. About it, then, and swiftly. Time is the very soul of fortune in this business, with the Spaniard straining at the leash, and Cecil and the rest pleading his case with her. Succeed, and thy fortune’s made; fail, and trouble not to seek me again.” Sir Richard bowed, and took his leave. As he reached the door, his lordship stayed him. “If thou bungle, do not look to me. The court goes to Windsor to-morrow. Bring me word there within the week.” He rose, magnificently tall and stately, in his bedgown of embroidered yellow satin, his handsome head thrown back, and went after his retainer. “Thou’lt not fail me, Dick,” said he, a hand upon the lesser scoundrel’s shoulder. “There is much at issue for me, and for thee with me.” “I will not fail you, my lord,” Sir Richard rashly promised, and on that they parted. Sir Richard did not mean to fail. He knew the importance of succeeding, and he appreciated the urgency of the business as much as did my lord himself. But between his cold, remorseless will to succeed and success itself there lay a gulf which it needed all his resource to bridge. He paid a short visit to Lady Robert at Cumnor, and professed deepest concern to find in her a pallor and an ailing air which no one else had yet observed. He expressed himself on the subject to Mrs. Buttelar and the other members of her ladyship’s household, reproaching them with their lack of care of their mistress. Mrs. Buttelar became indignant under his reproaches. “Nay, now, Sir Richard, do you wonder that my lady is sad and downcast with such tales as are going of my lord’s doings at court, and of what there is ’twixt the Queen and him? Her ladyship may be too proud to complain, but she suffers the more for that, poor lamb. There was talk of a divorce awhile ago that got to her ears.” “Old wives’ tales,” snorted Sir Richard. “Likely,” agreed Mrs. Buttelar. “Yet when my lord neither comes to Cumnor, nor requires her ladyship to go to him, what is she to think, poor soul?” Sir Richard made light of all, and went off to Oxford to find a physician more accommodating than Dr. Bayley. But Dr. Bayley had talked too much, and it was in vain that Sir Richard pleaded with each of the two physicians he sought that her ladyship was ailing—“sad and heavy”—and that he must have a potion for her. Each in turn shook his head. They had no medicine for sorrow, was their discreet answer. From his description of her condition, said each, it was plain that her ladyship’s sickness was of the mind, and, considering the tales that were afloat, neither was surprised.