me now in peace,"
said she, "you would avoid offending by a longer visit those who
accompanied or conducted you to my apartments."

She had drawn a bow at a venture but shrewdly, and the shaft went home
Charles rose, red in the face. Swearing he would never speak to her
again, he stalked out.

Later, however, he considered. If he felt bitterly aggrieved, he must
also have realized that he had no just grounds for this, and that in his
conduct in Miss Stewart's room he had been entirely ridiculous. She was
rightly resolved against being lightly worn by any man. If anything, the
reflection must have fanned his passion. It was impossible, he thought,
that she should love that knock-kneed fellow, Richmond, who had no
graces either of body or of mind, and if she suffered the man's suit,
it must be, as she had all but said, so that she might be delivered from
the persecution to which his Majesty had submitted her. The thought of
her marrying Richmond, or, indeed, anybody, was unbearable to Charles,
and it may have stifled his last scruple in the matter of the divorce.

His first measure next morning was to banish Richmond from the Court.
But Richmond had not stayed for the order to quit. The King's messenger
found him gone already.

Then Charles took counsel in the matter with the Chancellor.
Clarendon's habitual gravity was increased to sternness. He spoke to the
King--taking the fullest advantage of the tutelary position in which for
the last twenty-five years he had stood to him--much as he had spoken
when Charles had proposed to make Barbara Palmer a Lady of the Queen's
Bedchamber, saving that he was now even more uncompromising. The King
was not pleased with him. But just as he had had his way, despite the
Chancellor, in that other matter, so he would have his way despite him
now. This time, however, the Chancellor took no risks. He feared too
much the consequences for Charles, and he determined to spare no effort
to avoid a scandal, and to save the already deeply-injured Queen. So he
went secretly to work to outwit the King. He made himself the protector
of those lovers, the Duke of Richmond and Miss Stewart, with the result
that one dark night, a week or two later, the lady stole away from
the Palace of White-hall, and made her way to the Bear Tavern, at the
Bridge-foot, Westminster, where Richmond awaited her with a coach. And
so, by the secret favour of the Lord Chancellor, they stole away to Kent
and matrimony.