I pictured to myself how I would have the place altered and brightened, that it might be in better keeping with its fair inmate. I could even hear her light-hearted song, as she fluttered about the house, and played among the flowers, like a gayly-colored butterfly. I saw us strolling through our park. Her fair hand was resting on my shoulder, and mine arm did encircle her fairy waist. The sun was pouring through the trees like streams of fine gold. The birds were singing all around us, and all nature seemed trying to keep in harmony with our love and add unto our happiness. Now and then would I stoop and pick a flower and place it in her beauteous, dark brown hair. Then did I see my father's faithful old servant, Dickon, come shuffling across the lawn to tell us that it was time for dinner. And so my dream goeth on, till it is interrupted by Harleston, who enters my room. He was dressed in a long flowing robe, and there was nothing about his appearance that would tell us he had been to a ball that night. "Well upon my soul, Bradley, art thou still sitting up? Why, methought that I was the only late bird about the Castle. And your clothes still on. Come, come, Walter, thou must be careful and do not let this flood of happiness drown thy reason." "Fear not for that," I replied; "for the said flood is so thick that my reason doth float upon the surface." "Indeed thou dost put it well. But come now, I must to that which brought me here at this unseemly hour. When you did take me into that small room, this evening, thou saidst that thou hadst two communications of importance to make. So far you have made but one: it was my desire to hear the other that brought me here to-night." "Ah, yes, I had forgot," I replied. "Now the second is this, and I will not so hesitate in the telling of it as I did with the first." Then I told him all I had overheard, and how I came to be the unwilling listener. When I had finished he said:--"Thou mayst thank Heaven that thou didst overhear that same conversation; for it doth give us the key unto the puzzle which Richard will present to England, in case the King doth not recover. The Queen should be warned," he continued.