‘I desire,’ said the marquis, ’thou shouldst explain to his majesty that trick of thy cousin Glamorgan, the water-shoot, and let him see it work.’

‘My lord,’ answered Dorothy, trembling betwixt devotion and doubtful duty, ’it was the great desire of my lord Glamorgan that none in the castle should know the trick, as it pleases your lordship to call it.’

’What, cousin! cannot his majesty keep a secret?  And doth not all that Glamorgan hath belong to the king?’

‘God forbid I should doubt either, my lord,’ answered Dorothy, turning very pale, and ready to sink, ’but it cannot well be done in the broad day without some one seeing.  At night, indeed—­’

’Tut, tut! it is but a whim of Glamorgan’s.  Thou wilt not do a jot of ill to show the game before his majesty in the sunlight.’

‘My lord, I promised.’

’Here standeth who will absolve thee, child!  His majesty is paramount to Glamorgan.’

‘My lord! my lord!’ said Dorothy almost weeping, ’I am bewildered, and cannot well understand.  But I am sure that if it be wrong, no one can give me leave to do it, or absolve me beforehand.  God himself can but pardon after the thing is done, not give permission to do it.  Forgive me, sir, but so master Matthew Herbert hath taught me.’

‘And very good doctrine, too,’ said the marquis emphatically, ’let who will propound it.  Think you not so, sir?’

But the king stood with dull imperturbable gaze fixed on the distant horizon, and made no reply.  An awkward silence followed.  The king requested his host to conduct him to his apartment.

‘I marvel, my lord,’ said his majesty as they went down the stair, seeing how lame his host was, ’that, as they tell me, your lordship drinks claret.  All physicians say it is naught for the gout.’

‘Sir,’ returned the marquis, ’it shall never be said that I forsook my friend to pleasure my enemy.’

The king’s face grew dark, for ever since the lecture for which he had made Gower the textbook, he had been ready to see a double meaning of rebuke in all the marquis said.  He made no answer, avoided his attendants who waited for him in the fountain court, expecting him to go by the bell-tower, and, passing through the hall and the stone court, ascended to his room alone, and went into the picture-gallery, where he paced up and down till supper-time.

The marquis rejoined the little company of his own friends who had left the bowling-green after him, and were now in the oak parlour.  A little troubled at the king’s carriage towards him, he entered with a merrier bearing than usual.

‘Well, gentlemen, how goes the bias?’ he said gayly.

‘We were but now presuming to say, my lord,’ answered Mr. Prichard, ’that there are who would largely warrant that if you would you might be duke of Somerset.’

‘When I was earl of Worcester,’ returned the marquis, ’I was well to do; since I was marquis, I am worse by a hundred thousand pounds; and if I should be a duke, I should be an arrant beggar.  Wherefore I had rather go back to my earldom, than at this rate keep on my pace to the dukedom of Somerset.’