they DIFFER, in one
unweighty trifle or another, from what his custom was aforetime. Seemeth
it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his father's
very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due from such
as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his Greek and
French? My lord, be not offended, but ease my mind of its disquiet and
receive my grateful thanks. It haunteth me, his saying he was not the
prince, and so--"

"Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason! Hast forgot the King's command?
Remember I am party to thy crime if I but listen."

St. John paled, and hastened to say--

"I was in fault, I do confess it. Betray me not, grant me this grace out
of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing more.
Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined."

"I am content, my lord. So thou offend not again, here or in the ears of
others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken. But thou need'st
not have misgivings. He is my sister's son; are not his voice, his face,
his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all the odd
conflicting things thou seest in him, and more. Dost not recall how that
the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his own countenance
that he had known for sixty years, and held it was another's; nay, even
claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that his head was made of
Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none to touch it, lest by
mischance some heedless hand might shiver it? Give thy misgivings
easement, good my lord. This is the very prince--I know him well--and
soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this in mind, and
more dwell upon it than the other."

After some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his
mistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was
thoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the
Lord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and
ward alone. He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he
thought, the more he was bothered. By-and-by he began to pace the floor
and mutter.

"Tush, he MUST be the prince! Will any be in all the land maintain there
can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned? And
even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should cast
the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly, folly, folly!"

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