rself browsed in the sunlight beyond the doorway, in the
circuit allowed by a twenty-foot tether.

"What was enough to madden all the saints, O Marc'antonio?"

"Why," said he, savagely, "your standing up to him and denying his
birth and his sister's before all the crowd. I did not think that
anything could have saved you."

"If I remember, I added that the Queen Emilia's bare word would be
enough for me."

"So. But you denied it on his father's, and that is what his
enemies, the Paolists all, would give their ears to hear--yes, and
Pasquale Paoli himself, though he passes for a just man."

"Marc'antonio," said I, seriously, "are the Prince and Princess in
truth the children of King Theodore?"

"As God hears me, cavalier, they are his twin children, born in the
convent of Santa Maria di Fosciandora, in the valley of the Serchio,
some leagues to the north of Florence; and on the feast-day of Saint
Mark these sixteen years ago."

"Then King Theodore either knew nothing of it, or he was a liar."

"He was a liar, cavalier."

"Stay a moment. I have a mind to tell you the whole story as it came
to me, and as I should have told it to the Prince Camillo, had he
treated me with decent courtesy."

Marc'antonio ceased blowing the fire and sitting back on his heels
disposed himself to listen. Very briefly I told him of my journey to
London, my visit to the Fleet, and how I received the crown with
Theodore's blessing.

"That he denied having children I will not say: but (I remember well)
my father took it for granted that he had no children, and he said
nothing to the contrary. Indeed on any other assumption his gift of
the crown to me would have been meaningless."

Marc'antonio nodded, following my argument. "But there is another
difficulty," I went on. "My father, who does not lie, told me once
that King Theodore returned to the island in the year 'thirty-nine,
where he stayed but for a week; and that not until a year later did
his queen escape across to Tuscany."

But here Marc'antonio shook his head vigorously. "Whoever told your
father that, told him an untruth. The Queen fled from Porto Vecchio
in that same winter of 'thirty-nine, a few days before Christmas.
I myself steered the boat that carried her."

"To be sure," said I, "my father may have had his information from
King Theodore."

"The good sisters of the convent," continued Marc'antonio, "received
the Queen and did all that was necessary for