ave more than one mission which must be
done for me; and if you like it, Mr. Mallock, you may have the first."

"Sir; I must go to France immediately. The hunt is up, after me, too."

"What do you mean by that?" he said sharply. "The hunt! What is that?"

"I would not weary Your Majesty with it all; but the truth is that the
fellow Dangerfield, who came after me here, came yesterday with a
magistrate and near a dozen men, to Hare Street to take me. I eluded
them, and came to London."

"You eluded them! How was that?"

Well; I told him as shortly as I could; and he laughed outright when I
came to my Cousin Dolly's part in it.

"Why: that was very wittily done!" he said. "The minx!"

I did not much like that; but I could not find fault with the King.

"And I was at Tyburn this morning, Sir."

"What! At Tyburn!"

"At Tyburn, Sir; and I was so sick at heart at what I saw there--five of
Your Majesty's most faithful servants murdered in the name of justice,
that I would not have cared greatly if I had been hanged with them."

His face darkened a little; but not with anger at me.

"It is a bloody business, as I have said," he said gently. "But
come!--it is to France that you go."

"There is as good as any other place," I said, "so I be out of the
kingdom. I have estates there, too."

"But to France will suit very well," said the King. "For it is to France
that I designed to send you. I have plenty of couriers who can take
written messages, and I have plenty of men who can talk--some think, too
much; but I have no one at hand at this moment whom I can send to Court,
and who will acquit himself well there, and that can take a message
too--none, that is, that is not occupied. What do you say, Mr. Mallock?
Would a couple of months there please you?"

Here then was the time for my announcement; for I knew that if I did not
make it then I should make it never.

I stood up; and my heart beat thickly.

"Sir," I said. "Six months ago I would have run anywhere to serve you.
But in six months many things have happened; and I cannot serve a Prince
any more who cannot keep his word even to save the innocent. I had best
be gone again to Rome, I think, and see what they can give me there. I
am sick of England, which I once loved so much."

It was those very words--or others very like them that I said. I do not
know where I got the courage to say them, for my life lay altogether in
the King's hand: a word from him, or eve