her. But among them
must have been one who loved the Genoese or their gold: for when the
children were but ten days old they vanished, having been stolen and
handed secretly to the Genoese--yes, cavalier, out of the Queen's own
sleeping-chamber. Little doubt had we they were dead--for why should
their enemies spare them? And never should we have recovered trace
of them but for the Father Domenico, who knew what had become of them
(having learnt it, no doubt, among the sisters' confessions, to
receive which he visited the convent) and that they were alive and
unharmed; but he kept the secret, for his oath's sake, or else
waiting for the time to ripen."

"Then King Theodore may also have believed them dead," I suggested.
"Let us do him that justice. Or he may never have known that they
existed."

Marc'antonio brushed this aside with a wave of his hand.

"The cavalier," he answered with dignity, "may have heard me allude
to my travels?"

"Once or twice."

"The first time that I crossed the Alps"--great Hannibal might have
envied the roll in Marc'antonio's voice--"I bore the King tidings of
his good fortune. It was Stephanu who followed, a week later, with
the tale that the children were stolen."

"Then Theodore _did_ believe them dead."

"At the time, cavalier; at the time, no doubt. But more than twelve
years later, being in Brussels--" Here Marc'antonio pulled himself
up, with a sudden dark flush and a look of confusion.

"Go on, my friend. You were saying that twelve years later,
happening to be in Brussels--"

"By the merest chance, cavalier. Before retiring to England King
Theodore spent the most of his exile in Flanders and the Low
Countries: and in Brussels, as it happened, I had word of him and
learned--but without making myself known to him--that he was seeking
his two children."

"Seeking them in Brussels?"

"At a venture, no doubt, cavalier. Put the case that you were
seeking two children, of whom you knew only that they were alive and
somewhere in Europe--like two fleas, as you might say, in a bundle of
straw--"

I looked at Marc'antonio and saw that he was lying, but politely
forbore to tell him so.

"Then Theodore knew that his children were alive?" said I musing.
"Yet he gave my father to understand that he had no children."

"Mbe, but he was a great liar, that Theodore? Always when it
profited, and sometimes for the pleasure of it."

"Nevertheless, to disinherit his own son!