h the Spaniard straining at the leash, and Cecil and the
rest pleading his case with her. Succeed, and thy fortune's made; fail,
and trouble not to seek me again."

Sir Richard bowed, and took his leave. As he reached the door, his
lordship stayed him. "If thou bungle, do not look to me. The court goes
to Windsor to-morrow. Bring me word there within the week." He rose,
magnificently tall and stately, in his bedgown of embroidered yellow
satin, his handsome head thrown back, and went after his retainer.
"Thou'lt not fail me, Dick," said he, a hand upon the lesser scoundrel's
shoulder. "There is much at issue for me, and for thee with me."

"I will not fail you, my lord," Sir Richard rashly promised, and on that
they parted.

Sir Richard did not mean to fail. He knew the importance of succeeding,
and he appreciated the urgency of the business as much as did my lord
himself. But between his cold, remorseless will to succeed and success
itself there lay a gulf which it needed all his resource to bridge.
He paid a short visit to Lady Robert at Cumnor, and professed deepest
concern to find in her a pallor and an ailing air which no one else had
yet observed. He expressed himself on the subject to Mrs. Buttelar and
the other members of her ladyship's household, reproaching them with
their lack of care of their mistress. Mrs. Buttelar became indignant
under his reproaches.

"Nay, now, Sir Richard, do you wonder that my lady is sad and downcast
with such tales as are going of my lord's doings at court, and of what
there is 'twixt the Queen and him? Her ladyship may be too proud to
complain, but she suffers the more for that, poor lamb. There was talk
of a divorce awhile ago that got to her ears."

"Old wives' tales," snorted Sir Richard.

"Likely," agreed Mrs. Buttelar. "Yet when my lord neither comes to
Cumnor, nor requires her ladyship to go to him, what is she to think,
poor soul?"

Sir Richard made light of all, and went off to Oxford to find a
physician more accommodating than Dr. Bayley. But Dr. Bayley had talked
too much, and it was in vain that Sir Richard pleaded with each of
the two physicians he sought that her ladyship was ailing--"sad and
heavy"--and that he must have a potion for her.

Each in turn shook his head. They had no medicine for sorrow, was their
discreet answer. From his description of her condition, said each, it
was plain that her ladyship's sickness was of the mind, and, considering
the tal