mournful tidings Sir Robert
Brackenbury brings."

Bluntly and simply the old Knight told the story. When he ended there
was deep concern on every face and all eyes turned toward the King.

"You perceive, my lords, the gravity of the situation," said Richard.
"What shall be done?"

None answered.

"Come, sirs; it is here and we must face it. What say you, Stanley?"

The Lord Steward swept the circle with a keen glance.

"Your Majesty has put a direful question and given us scant time for
thought," he replied. "Yet but two courses seem possible: either to
proclaim the Princes dead by natural causes and give them public burial;
or to conceal the death, and by letting the world fancy them life
prisoners so forget them. Each has its advantage; but on the whole, the
latter may be better. Nathless, this much is self-evident--the true tale
dare not be told. Daggers, blood, and death are inexplicable when Kings'
sons are the victims, save on one hypothesis."

One after another endorsed these words, until finally it came back to the
King for decision.

For a long while he sat silent, staring into vacancy. Through the open
windows floated the noises of the courtyard--the neigh of a horse, the
call of a soldier, the rattle of steel on stone; from the anteroom came
the hum of voices, the tramp of a foot, the echo of a laugh. But within,
no one spoke nor even stirred. Not a man there but understood the
fatefulness of the moment and the tremendous consequences of the
decision, which, once made, might never be amended. At length he spoke.

"It is an ill-fated event and leaves a dismal prospect," he said very
quietly. "Sooner or later my nephews' death will be laid on me. To
proclaim them dead would be to declare me guilty now. To conceal their
death will be simply to postpone that guilt a time--a very little time,
it may be. Curiosity will arise over their prolonged disappearance . . .
then will come suspicion . . . and at length suspicion will become
accepted fact. . . So, my lords, their blood will be put on me--either
now or in the future. That is my only choice--now or the future--. . .
and I choose the future. We will not announce the death; and the bodies
shall be buried privately and in an unknown spot. To you, Sir Robert
Brackenbury, I commit the task, trusting you fully. . . And, my lords,
from this moment henceforth, let this council and its sad subject be
forgotten utterly. . . Only I ask that w