“You did but this moment, my Lord. If my word be worth aught in the one matter, let it weigh in the other.”
The Chancellor meditated a minute, but he could not deny the justice of the plea.
“Moreover, Lady, we heard,”—how had they heard it?—“that some trial were to be made of scaling the walls of the King’s Grace’s Palace of Eltham.”
Constance grew paler. If they had heard this of Edward, what might they have heard of Richard’s presence in the journey to Hereford?
“Have you so, Sir?” she answered, losing none of her apparent coolness.
“We have so, Madam!” replied Beaufort sternly; “and moreover of conspiration to steal away his Highness’ person, and prison him—if not worser matter than this.”
“Not of my doing,” said Constance.
“How far you were privy thereto or no, that I leave. But can you deny that it were of my Lord of York his doing?”
“I was not there,” she quickly rejoined. “How then wis I?”
“Can you deny that my Lord of Cambridge was therein concerned?”