rying to take her
hand, but failing. "Nor have I spied upon you. I heard that you had gone
to the Old Swan to see Hamilton, whom it is said you love."

Pantomime to show great grief and a deep sense of cruel injury, but the
tears ceased to flow because of the fact that she was past tears now.

"I'll leave Whitehall this day!" she said, shaking her head dolefully. "I
am not strong enough to bear your Majesty's unjust frown. I have tried to
do right, tried to please you and the duchess--everybody, and this is my
reward! I know little of Master Hamilton, having seen him only a few
times in all my life. If I had no other cause to shun him, his character
would be sufficient."

Again the handkerchief was brought to the eyes effectively, for the
purpose of giving the king a little time in which to see how grievously
he had wronged her. It required but little time for him to realize how
cruel he had been, and in a moment he said pleadingly:--

"Your king asks your forgiveness. I do not suspect you of having gone
to see Hamilton. I am convinced that I was wrong. But won't you tell
me, please, why you visited the Old Swan? It is a decent tavern, I
understand, but a public place of the sort should not be visited by one
such as you unescorted."

"Your Majesty is right, and I thank you for the reprimand," returned
Frances, drying her eyes. "But Pickering, who is the host of the Old
Swan, has a daughter, Bettina, who is a good girl, far above her station.
She is my friend. I went to see her this morning to drink a cup of
wormwood wine with her. Now you know my reason for going."

Wormwood wine was considered a toper's drink.

Her confusion and modest hesitancy in confessing to the wormwood wine
were so pretty and so convincing that the king laughed and seized her by
the arm affectionately:--

"Ah, at last it is out!" he cried. "I have discovered your sin! I knew
you must have one tucked about you somewhere. Wormwood wine! Absinthe!
The drink of our depraved French friends! Who would have suspected you of
using it?"

"Yes," murmured Frances, glad to be found guilty of the wrong sin.

"Ah, well, we'll have it together here at home," said the king, "so that
you need not go abroad for it hereafter."

"No, no, I shall never again drink wormwood," protested Frances. "Betty
Pickering tells me it causes vapors in the head, horrid waking dreams,
and in the end incurable spasms."

"Your resolution is well taken," returned the kin