How now, Sir------" Stanley began angrily; but Richard silenced him with
an imperious gesture.

"Hold, my Lord Steward," he said sternly, "no words betwixt you two. And
hark you both, no renewal of this hereafter. You are each acquittanced
of the other now."

De Lacy drew himself up stiffly and saluted.

"The King commands," he said.

"And you, my lord?" asked Richard, eyeing Stanley.

"Pardieu! Sire, I have no quarrel with Sir Aymer," he answered, and
affably extended his hand.

Just then there came loud voices from the outer room, followed
immediately by the entrance of the page.

"May it please Your Majesty," the boy said, as the King's curt nod gave
him leave to speak, "Sir Robert Brackenbury craves instant audience on
business of state."

"Admit him!"

The next moment the old Knight strode into the room, spurs jangling and
boots and doublet soiled by travel.

"Welcome, Robert," said Richard, giving him his hand. "What brings you
in such haste?"

"Matters which are for your ears alone, Sire," said the Constable of the
Tower, with the abruptness of a favored counsellor.

The King walked to a distant window.

"Might the two-faced Lord Steward hear us?" Brackenbury asked.

"No danger, speak--what is amiss in London?"

"Enough and to spare. Edward's sons are dead."

Even Richard's wonderful self-control was unequal to such news, and he
started back.

"Holy Paul!" he exclaimed, under his breath; then stood with bent
head. . . "How happened it?"

"No one knows, certainly. As you expressly ordered, either the
lieutenant or myself regularly locked their apartments at sundown and
opened them at dawn. Two nights since I, myself, turned key upon them.
In the morning I found them dead--in each breast a grievous
wound--Edward's bloody dagger on the floor."

"And your view of it?"

"That Edward killed Richard and himself. He had lately been oppressed
with heavy melancholy."

The King shook his head. "Yes, that is doubtless the solution, yet scant
credence will be given it. To the Kingdom it will be murder foul. . .
Yet, pardieu! who else know it?"

"None but my lieutenant."

"And his discretion?"

"Beyond suspicion. He has forgotten it long since."

Richard called De Lacy to him. "Let Suffolk, Lovel, Ratcliffe, D'Evereux
and Catesby be summoned instantly," he ordered.

"My friends," said he, when the last of them had come, "I have sore need
of your wisdom and counsel. Hark to the