“Odd’s fish, my lord Rockhurst!” cried the King. “You look at the pretty boy as if you saw a spectre!”
“Even so, your Majesty.”
The sonority of the voice, the strange words, fell impressively in that light atmosphere. Again Enguerrand’s black pupils shot fury. Rockhurst, with the same absorbed air, laid his fingers on a slender chain that hung round his neck, and drew from his breast a gold locket.
Opening and holding it in his hand so that none could view it but himself, he appeared to be contrasting some portrait concealed in it with the countenance of the still kneeling boy.
“Ha!” cried the King, “take heed, ladies; for, as we live, the mystery of my lord Rockhurst’s locket is at length to be solved. A spectre, did you say, my lord?”
The Lord Constable closed the locket with a snap, slipped it back among the laces on his breast, and turned easily upon the King; his frown had vanished.
“Nay, no spectre, sire; the merest passing fantasy!”
Charles was shaken with laughter, a noiseless laugh which scarcely wrote itself upon his melancholy features.
“Methought, from your lenten face,” said he, “that you were struck by some memory of past misdeeds.”