But these good resolves came too late. Even as Leontes was speaking, Paulina rushed back into the court, weeping and wringing her hands. With burning words that went straight to the truth, she hurled the bitterest reproaches at the King, denouncing his tyranny and worse than childish jealousy, which had led to one evil after another. He had betrayed Polixenes, attempted to poison Camillo’s honour, cast forth to the crows his baby daughter, had indirectly brought about the death of the young Prince. But last, beyond all these things--worst of all--the Queen was dead! “O, thou tyrant!” she cried, almost distracted with grief. “Do not repent these things, for they are heavier than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee to nothing but despair. A thousand knees, ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, upon a barren mountain, and still winter, in storm perpetual, could not move the gods to look on thee with pity.” “Go on, go on,” murmured the conscience-stricken Leontes. “I have deserved all tongues to talk their bitterest.” Paulina, seeing that Leontes was sincere in his repentance, now softened, and in her impulsive fashion asked pardon for her rash and impetuous words. But Leontes was honest enough to own that she had spoken nothing but truth, and he would not let her retract what she had said. “Prithee, bring me to the dead bodies of my wife and son,” he said. “One grave shall be for both; on it shall appear the cause of their death, for my perpetual shame. Once a day I’ll visit the chapel where they lie, and tears shed there shall be my recreation.” So the unhappy King strove in vain by a tardy penance to atone for the wrongs he had done. A Queen of Curds and Cream Sixteen years had rolled away since the day when the shepherd had found the little deserted baby, and taken it to his own cottage. The old man had prospered since those days, and from having almost nothing had risen to large estates. The maiden who passed as his daughter had grown into such rare loveliness that the report of her beauty spread through all the country of Bohemia, and even reached the palace of the King. Polixenes, it will be remembered, had one son, Florizel, who was the same age as the young Prince Mamillius of Sicilia, dead sixteen years before. Prince Florizel at this time was about twenty-one years old. It happened one day when he was out hawking that his falcon flew across the land belonging to the shepherd, and seeing Perdita, Florizel was so struck by her charm and beauty that he at once fell in love with her. From that day he was a constant visitor at the shepherd’s house, so much so that the King, his father, noticed his frequent absence from home, and taking counsel with Camillo, they decided to go themselves to the shepherd’s house in disguise to see what could be the attraction that was always taking the Prince to this homely dwelling.