Lancastrian lords, and see that
none quit the realm where they are captives, to join a camp where they
can rise into leaders. And at the very moment I urge you to place strict
watch upon Oxford, to send your swiftest riders to seize Jasper of
Pembroke, you laugh with glee to hear that Oxford and Pembroke are gone
to swell the army of your foes!"

"Better foes out of my realm than in it," answered Edward, dryly.

"My liege, I say no more," and Richard rose. "I would forestall a
danger; it but remains for me to share it."

The king was touched. "Tarry yet, Richard," he said; and then, fixing
his brother's eye, he continued, with a half smile and a heightened
colour, "though we knew thee true and leal to us, we yet know also,
Richard, that thou hast personal interest in thy counsels. Thou wouldst
by one means or another soften or constrain the earl into giving thee
the hand of Anne. Well, then, grant that Warwick and Clarence expel King
Edward from his throne, they may bring a bride to console thee for the
ruin of a brother."

"Thou hast no right to taunt or to suspect me, my liege," returned
Richard, with a quiver in his lip. "Thou hast included me in thy
meditated wrong to Warwick; and had that wrong been done--"

"Peradventure it had made thee espouse Warwick's quarrel?"

"Bluntly, yes!" exclaimed Richard, almost fiercely, and playing with his
dagger. "But" (he added, with a sudden change of voice) "I understand
and know thee better than the earl did or could. I know what in thee
is but thoughtless impulse, haste of passion, the habit kings form of
forgetting all things save the love or hate, the desire or anger, of a
moment. Thou hast told me thyself, and with tears, of thy offence; thou
hast pardoned my boy's burst of anger; I have pardoned thy evil thought;
thou hast told me thyself that another face has succeeded to the brief
empire of Anne's blue eye, and hast further pledged me thy kingly
word, that if I can yet compass the hand of a cousin dear to me from
childhood, thou wilt confirm the union."

"It is true," said Edward. "But if thou wed thy bride, keep her aloof
from the court,--nay, frown not, my boy, I mean simply that I would not
blush before my brother's wife!"

Richard bowed low in order to conceal the expression of his face,
and went on without further notice of the explanation. "And all
this considered, Edward, I swear by Saint Paul, the holiest saint to
thoughtful men, and by Saint George, th