A light leap, and Everychild was in the room, advancing and taking in his surroundings with amazed eyes.  But no one paid any attention to him.  Hubert de Burgh stood near Prince Arthur, a smoking iron in his hand.  The two attendants closed the door behind them with a crash.  Then Arthur spoke again: 

“I could not bear to have them looking, Hubert,” he said.  “It will be easier, just we two alone.  I am ready now.”

It was then that Hubert gripped Arthur by the shoulder; he brought the hot iron close to his face.  And then again his resolution failed him.  His hand trembled; he paused.  Presently he was gazing away over the prince’s head, almost as if he saw a vision, and his hand on the boy’s shoulder slowly relaxed.

“A strange lad!—­a strange lad!” he mused.  And then looking wonderingly at Arthur he added, “The agony is gone from your eyes when you look at me now.  And yet it is I who would destroy you—­not those fellows who made you tremble so!”

The prince drew himself up with unconscious pride.  “I would rather suffer at the hands of those I love than receive benefits from hirelings,” he said.

But Hubert shook his head darkly.  “Hirelings?” he repeated.  “Ah, who is not a hireling, when a king may have his way?  Who can call his honor his own, when a crown is counted a more sacred thing than a man’s soul?” He paused in silence again and then added almost banteringly—­yet with a note of earnestness, too—­“Come, boy, the young have wary eyes and swift feet.  Can you not flee and escape from the wrath and fear of your uncle the King?”

But Arthur shook his head.  “I think when your work is done, dear Hubert,” he said, “the fear of the king and his wrath will trouble me no more.”

Hubert frowned darkly.  “That is an old man’s creed,” he cried.  “It is monstrous that a child should welcome death!”

He turned away from Arthur and fixed his blank eyes in the direction of Everychild.  And presently he lifted his trembling hand to his brow, and there was the light of a terrible vision in his eyes.  He began to speak like one in a dreadful dream—­

“Methinks I see the face of Everychild!” he mused.  “Methinks that always the face of Everychild shall gaze upon me with horror and contempt because I slew this gentle lad.  Nay, by my faith, I will not!”

He thrust Arthur from him.  “Go your way!” he cried.  “Though there were a thousand King Johns, it shall also be said that there was one Hubert de Burgh.  If heaven has set no bounds to duty, then I owe a duty to myself as well as to the king.  And if a child must needs teach me that there are things more terrible than death, then let me learn a lesson from this child who has the soul of a prince, though he may never wield the scepter of a king.  Go free, boy.  King John may have a thousand murderers, but it shall also be said of him that he had for chamberlain one who was a man.”