counts!" cried Richard. "These
persons here will first deal with your followers. Then will they
conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired to deal with you himself,
in privacy, since that WhitMonday when you stabbed his son."

The King began: "In mercy, sire--!" and Richard laughed a little.

"That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantagenets, as both we
know. Nay, Fate and Time are merry jesters. See, now, their latest
mockery! You the King of England ride to Sycharth to your death, and I
the tender of sheep depart into London, without any hindrance, to reign
henceforward over all these islands. To-morrow you are worm's-meat;
and to-morrow, as aforetime, I am King of England."

Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard forgot all things
saving this girl, and strode to her. He had caught up either of her
hard, lithe hands; against his lips he strained them close and very
close.

"Branwen--!" he said. His eyes devoured her.

"Yes, King," she answered. "O King of England! O fool that I had been
to think you less!"

In a while Richard said: "Now I choose between a peasant wench and
England. Now I choose, and, ah, how gladly! O Branwen, help me to be
more than King of England!"

Low and very low he spoke, and long and very long he gazed at her and
neither seemed to breathe. Of what she thought I cannot tell you; but
in Richard there was no power of thought, only a great wonderment.
Why, between this woman and aught else there was no choice for him, he
knew upon a sudden, and could never be! He was very glad. He loved
the tiniest content of the world.

Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this Richard the dogged
voice of Henry of Lancaster. "It is of common report in these islands
that I have a better right to the throne than you. As much was told
our grandfather, King Edward of happy memory, when he educated you and
had you acknowledged heir to the crown, but his love was so strong for
his son the Prince of Wales that nothing could alter his purpose. And
indeed if you had followed even the example of the Black Prince you
might still have been our King; but you have always acted so contrarily
to his admirable precedents as to occasion the rumor to be generally
believed throughout England that you were not, after all, his son--"

Richard had turned impatiently. "For the love of Heaven, truncate your
abominable periods. Be off with you. Yonder across that river is the