The pure light of day was extinguished, never to dawn for him again; and all the light that was left came from the dull torch of ambition. Richard sat in the room of the royal lodging at Leicester, where we have before seen him. There was a gentleman by his side, with head slightly bent, reading, from a long slip of paper, some notes of all the different pieces of intelligence which had been received during the day. "What next?" demanded the king, in a dull and almost inattentive, tone. "The letter which your grace proposed to write to your royal sister-in-law," replied the gentleman. Richard started, "Ay," he said, thoughtfully; "ay, it must be done;" and, rubbing his temple gently with the fingers of his right hand, he seemed to give himself up to meditation. After a short space of time, it would appear, he partly forgot, if I may use such a term, the presence of another; and he murmured words to himself, which he might not have done had he been acutely conscious that they were overheard, "Shall the son of Clarence succeed?" he asked himself, in a long gloomy tone; "for him have I done all these things?--To make him King of England? That fair inheritance, for which I have toiled and laboured, and thought, and desired, and watched by night, and acted by day, shall it be his?--No, no! And yet there is a fate that overrules man's policy, and thwarts his best-devised schemes.--No child for me, if Ann lives; and it all goes to another race.--What then?" And he paused, and thought once more very deeply. The busy movements of his mind during that reverie who shall scrutinize? But at length he said: "No, no! She was the love of my youth, the partner of my early cares and joys.--No! Grief will soon do its work on her. She is of that soft and fragile-hearted nature, which crumbles at the first rude touch, like the brittle sandstone. I am of granite, which the chisel may mark, but which no saw will touch--hard and perdurable. We must bide the event. The canker is on the frail flower, and it will fall soon enough! In the mean time, 'tis well to be prepared;" and, turning to the man beside him, he added, "I will write that letter with my own hand. Have a post ready by six this evening. What next?" "The young Lord Chartley waits your grace's will, in ward," replied the secretary; and, seeing that Richard seemed plunged in thought again, he added, "suspected of aiding the escape of Morton, bishop of Ely." "Ha!" cried Richard, with an angry start; "he shall--" But he paused suddenly, laid his hand upon his brow for a moment or two, and then added in a calmer tone, "No. He is a foolish boy. This man was his tutor. We love those who were the guides and conductors of our youth. But I will make sure of him. Give me those letters--No, not those, the packet on the left;" and, having received what he demanded, he examined the despatches carefully, and then said, "What next?" The secretary looked at the paper in his hand, and then replied: