"Nay, there I grant you," said the poet, shaking his head, while the puzzled expression crept once more into his face. "Ay, there, and in more than this!" Phoebe exclaimed. "You have spoken of Hamlet, Master Shakespeare. Guy hath told me something of that tragedy. This Prince of Denmark is a most unhappy wight, if I mistake not. Doth he not once turn to thought of self-murder?" "Ay, mistress. I have given Sir Guy my thoughts on the theme of Hamlet, and have told him I planned a speech wherein should be made patent Hamlet's desperate weariness of life, sickened by brooding on his mother's infamy." "'To be or not to be, that is the question,'" quoted Phoebe. "Runs it not so?" "This passes!" cried Shakespeare, once more all amazement. "I told not this to your friend!" "Nor did I from Guy receive it," said Phoebe. "Tell me, Master Shakespeare, have you yet brought that speech to its term?" "No," he replied, "nor have I found the task an easy one. Much have I written, but 'tis all too slight. Can you complete these lines, think you?" "My life upon it!" she cried, eagerly. He shook his head, smiling incredulously. "You scarce know what you promise," he said. "Can one so young--a damsel, too--sound to its bitter deeps the soul of Hamlet!" "Think you so?" Phoebe replied, her eyes sparkling. "Then what say you to a bargain, Master Shakespeare? You know where Sir Guy Fenton may be found?" "Ay, right well! 'Tis a matter of one hour's ride." "So I thought," she said. "Hear, then, mine offer. I must perforce convey a message straight that touches the life and honor of Sir Guy. To send my servant were over-dangerous, for there may be watchers on my going and coming. Will you go, sir, without delay, if that I speak for you the missing lines completing young Hamlet's soliloquy?" Shakespeare looked into her face for a few moments in silence. "Why, truly," he said at last, "I have here present business with my fellow-player Burbidge." He paused, and then, yielding to the pleading in her eyes: "Yet call it a bargain, mistress," he said. "Speak me the lines I lack and straightway will I take your word to Sir Guy." "Now blessings on thee!" cried Phoebe. "Give me straight the line you last have written." At once the poet began: "When he himself might his quietus make----" "With a bare bodkin"--broke in the excited girl. "Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat beneath a weary life, but that the thought of something after death--the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns--puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and so the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment by this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action."