“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed the king.  “She will have nothing to say to my friends, Lady Castlemain and others, and I supposed she would be too nice and proper to choose you for her friend.”

“No, no,” returned Nelly.  “She is my first friend among the court ladies.  We have had several rare adventures together, and don’t you know, I have discovered that she is in love.”

“With whom?” demanded the king.

“With your friend and mine, George Hamilton,” returned Nelly.

“Ah, well, he is in France, and we shall see that he remains there,” said the king.

“No, he is not in France.  He is in London,” said Nelly.  “I saw him at the Old Swan just before you left for Sheerness, nearly two months ago.”

“Odds fish!” swore his Majesty.  “We’ll find a mission for him abroad.”

“You’ll have to find him first,” said Nelly.  “I’ve been down to the Old Swan to see him, but the girl there tells me he left the tavern long ago, and I suspect he is at his brother’s house near St. Albans.  But I’ll tell you further.”

Then she told the king what Frances had said about a mysterious man whom Nelly asserted Frances both hated and loved.  She told him also that Frances had recognized one of the highwaymen who had robbed Roger Wentworth, and closed her narrative with an account of my cousin’s refusal to recognize Hamilton and her eagerness to explain to him after the fight.

“So you see, Rowley dear, I put this and that together and concluded that Frances Jennings loves George Hamilton because she can’t help it, and hates him because she recognized him as one of the murderers of Roger Wentworth.  She did not say that this is all true, nor will she talk on the subject, but one may see through a millstone with a hole in it.”

“Perhaps Hamilton’s complicity in the crime may save us the trouble of sending him abroad,” said the king.  “We may be able to hang him instead.”

“Surely you would not hang him for so small an offence?  The murdered man was only a tanner!” cried Nelly, fearing she had brought trouble on Hamilton by her gossip.

“Of course, if there were no reason save the demands of grasping justice, we should not trouble ourselves to look into the matter,” said Charles, “but stern justice, if used and not abused, is often a ready help to kings.”

Charles laughed, doubtless showing his yellow fangs, as was his habit when uttering a cruel jest, and Nelly began to coax him, hoping to avert the unforeseen trouble she had set afoot.  At last the king promised that he would take no steps against Hamilton, but I knew that royal promises were never worth the breath they cost in making.

* * * * *

As soon as Nelly and the king left my lord’s closet, I hastened to the river and took a boat for the Old Swan, intending to find Hamilton and to warn him.

When I told Betty that I wanted to see Hamilton on an affair of great urgency, she admitted that she knew where he was, and that she had refused to tell me when I asked her the last time because he had exacted a promise from her to tell no one.