"An attack on your Majesty's closet?" I cried. Then after a long pause, and with a manner of deep injury, I demanded: "Has anything untoward befallen my cousin? I carried out your Majesty's instructions without objection or protest. I intrusted her to your care, and it is my right and my duty to demand an account of her and to hold your Majesty responsible for her welfare."
He looked at me for a moment with a hang-dog expression on his face, but he could not stand my gaze, so he turned on his heel and left the room without another word.
He was not convinced of my guilt, nor would he believe me innocent. Evidently the royal verdict was "not proven." But in any case I knew that my favor at court was at an end.
During the next week I constantly importuned the king to tell me what had become of my cousin, and intimated my intention to make trouble in terms so plain—for I knew the king's favor was lost to me—that my Lord Clarendon was instructed to offer me a sum of money to say nothing more about the matter. I agreed to accept the money, it was paid, and I remained silent.
Frequently the difference between an acted lie and a spoken lie is the difference between success and failure. Then, too, the acted lie has this advantage; there is no commandment against it. We should congratulate ourselves that so many pleasant sins were omitted on Sinai.
At the end of a week after our great adventure I went to the country, and within a fortnight returned to find that my place in the Wardrobe was taken by another, and my place in the king's smile by the world at large; at least, it was lost to me.
When a wise courtier loses his king's smile, he takes himself out of his king's reach. Therefore I cast about in my mind for a London friend who would like to possess my title. I thought of Sir William Wentworth, rather of his wife, and suggested to her that for the sum of thirty thousand pounds I would resign my estates and title to the king, if Sir William would arrange for their transfer to himself. The transfer directly from me to him was not within the limits of the law. It could only be made through the king by forfeiture and grant. But the like had happened many times before, and could be accomplished now if the king were compensated for his trouble.
Wentworth broached the subject to our august sovereign who, in consideration of the sum of ten thousand pounds "lent" by Sir William to his Majesty, and because he was glad to conciliate a prominent citizen of London, that city being very angry on account of the sale of Dunkirk, agreed to the transfer, and the baronetcy of Clyde with the appurtenant estates passed to the house of Wentworth, where, probably, they brought trouble to Sir William and joyous discontent to his aspiring lady.
Aside from the fact that I knew the king's ill temper was cumulative, I had received a hint, coming through Castlemain's maid to Rochester, that if I remained in England, the king would despoil me. Then, too, I had other reasons for making the sale. I was sick of England's fawning on a poor weak creature, as cowardly as he was dull, and almost as dull as he was vicious, and longed to flee to the despotism of strength as I should find it in France under Louis XIV. There was still another reason, of which I shall speak later.
Three days after the consummation of my sale to Sir William Wentworth, Count Hamilton returned, and, learning of the manner in which I had disgraced myself, withdrew his challenge, sending De Grammont to tell me the sad news. He would not honor me by killing me.