ery touch
would soil a Stafford's gauntlet, I would lay my hand across your
Woodville mouth."

"It is passing strange then, if we be so degraded," said Rivers
quickly, "that you should have chosen a Woodville for a wife."

Pushing his horse past Grey, Buckingham leaned forward and would have
struck the Earl had not the calm tones of Gloucester stayed him in the
very act.

"Hold! Stafford, you forget yourself--and you, Sir Earl, return your
dagger."

"He shall answer me for those words," Buckingham exclaimed.

"I am at your service this very instant," returned Rivers, doffing his
bonnet and bowing to his charger's neck.

"This very instant be it," cried the Duke, springing down and drawing
sword.

Before the last word was spoken, Rivers was off his horse and
confronting Stafford with bared weapon. But ere the blades could clash
together, Gloucester swung between them and knocked up the Earl's sword
with his own, which he had unsheathed with amazing swiftness.

"Cease this foolishness," he said sternly. "Buckingham, you forget
yourself. Ratcliffe, arrest the Earl of Rivers and Sir Richard Grey."

The Master of Horse rode forward.

"Your sword, my lord," he said to Rivers.

For a moment the Earl hesitated; then hurled it far out into the river.

"In the name of the King, whose uncle and governor I am, I protest,
lord Duke, against this unwarranted and outrageous conduct," he cried.

"And I arrest you in the name of that very King, whose uncle and
guardian I am," replied Richard. "Ratcliffe, execute your orders."

"I must request you to accompany me forthwith," said Ratcliffe
courteously, to the two noblemen.

Resistance was utterly hopeless, and without a further word the Earl
remounted; and Grey taking place beside him they passed slowly toward
the rear. Presently, as they neared the end of the long column, a
hundred men detached themselves from the line and fell in behind them.
Rivers observed it with a smile, half sad, half cynical.

"They honor us, at least, in the size of our guard," he remarked to
Grey; then turned to Ratcliffe. "May I inquire our prison, Sir
Richard?"

"Certainly, my lord; we ride to Pontefract."

"Whence two of us shall ne'er return," said the Earl, with calm
conviction. "May the Good Christ watch over Edward now."

X

THE LADY MARY CHANGES BADGES

Five weeks had expired since the _coup d'etat_ at Stoney Stratford and
Richard was now Lord Protector of the R