"Be kind enough, my lord, to state the message you bring from your master, and to leave this house as soon as it is delivered."
To Captain Barker's astonishment, the Earl showed no sign of resenting this speech.
"You are wrong," he answered quietly; "William of Orange is not my master. If I mistake not, you and I, gentlemen, acknowledge but one sovereign ruler, King James."
At these bold words, uttered in the calmest voice, the two captains caught their breath and stared at each other. Captain Runacles was the first to recover. He laughed incredulously.
"Your lordship appears to have forgotten Salisbury."
Any other man would have winced at this taunt. But the Earl of Marlborough met it with the face of a statue.
"Captain Runacles, I have neither forgotten it nor am likely to. The remembrance of that affair has followed me night and day. I cannot—even now that I am pardoned—rid myself of its horror. I cannot eat; I cannot sleep. I see my crime in its true light, and am appalled by its enormity. And yet—God help me!—I thought at the time I was saving my country. Gentlemen, you, who have faced no such responsibility as then confronted me, will be apt to judge me without mercy. I know not if I can persuade you that my remorse is honest. But consider—Here am I at William's right hand, already rich and powerful, and possessing limitless prospects of increased power and riches. Yet am I ready to sacrifice everything, to brave everything, to bring utter ruin on my fortune, if only I can rid myself of this nightmare of shame. Is this the attitude of insincerity?"
"Upon my word, my lord, I'd give something to know why the devil you tell all this to us."
"I hardly know myself," answered the Earl, sighing deeply, but still without a grain of expression on his handsome face. "A man haunted as I am can hardly account for all his utterances. I have come to do you a service, and, having done it, might have withdrawn without a word. But the sight of you recalled the honest words you spoke to the usurper this afternoon. Sirs, I envied you then; and just now an insane longing took hold of me to set myself right with two such inflexible friends of King James."
"Would it not be more to the point if you first obtained pardon from King James himself?"