Wessex was nominally plighted to the lady. True, 'twas an engagement undertaken by the lady's own father, without the consent of the parties chiefly concerned. But in Tudor England there was a curious adherence to such solemnly plighted troths, which might have proved a bar to the Duke's sense of absolute freedom. If, however, he looked upon this unnatural and monstrous pledge with the lightness which it fully deserved, if he considered himself at liberty to break the imaginary bonds which held him to Lady Ursula, then the work of his partisans would become comparatively easy. They had always hoped and fully intended to overcome His Grace's scruples in the matter, and fondly thought that they would succeed. But since the Duke himself looked indifferently upon this so-called troth, why, Everingham himself was the first to feel the keenest satisfaction at the thought. "You dislike the lady then?" he asked with unfeigned delight. "I have never seen her," retorted Wessex placidly. "At any rate, not since she was in her cradle. I certainly didn't like her then." "She is very beautiful," remarked Everingham, with a somewhat shamefaced recollection of his previous adventure, "but----" "She might be a veritable angel, yet she would frighten me." A mock shudder passed through his tall, athletic frame, and taking his friend's arm in his, he whispered confidentially, "Think of it, my lord! A woman whom duty _compels_ one to love--Brrr!--Her own father plighted our troth; I am left comparatively free, yet if I do not wed Lady Ursula, she is doomed to end her days in a convent. . . . A matter of honour--what? . . . Yet I--I, who could love any woman," he added emphatically, "be she queen or peasant--that is--h'm!--if I were really put to it--find the very thought of my promised bride abhorrent. She is the one woman in all the world whom I could never love--never! . . . I know it! So I ran away from Court, not because I feared one woman loved me too much, but because I knew I should love one woman too little." He had spoken so light-heartedly, so gaily, that in spite of the grave issues at stake Everingham could not help but laugh. "Nay! perhaps you exaggerate the danger," he said. "The Lady Ursula might prefer the convent to being a duchess. She has never seen Your Grace, she is rich and high-born, she may be pious----" "Or perverse," responded Wessex. "I've never met a woman yet who didn't want--badly--the thing she mightn't get." "Is England then a woman," queried Everingham with renewed earnestness, "since she wants Wessex?" But the Duke was not prepared to follow his friend to-night into sentimental, ultra-patriotic bypaths. He was not altogether inclined to sacrifice his liberty for the sake of ousting the Spanish king from his proposed English throne. Nevertheless he rejoined more gravely than was his wont.