"Would that I knew his name," cried Edward, as he concluded the letter.
"I can tell you, my lord," replied Thomas de Clare. "It is Richard de Ashby."
"Ha!" said Edward, as if not well pleased--"Ha! Richard de Ashby. He is a faithful subject of my father's, I believe, but that is all the good I know of him. However, I must not be ungrateful--Hark! There is a step upon the stairs. Get the fruit into the basket--quick!" and concealing the note, Edward cast himself into the chair which he had previously occupied.
De Clare had scarcely replaced the strawberries and set down the basket, when a heavy, stern-looking man, one of the chief officers whom the Earl of Leicester had placed in attendance, as he called it, upon the Prince, entered the room, with a silver dish in his hand.
"Seeing that a fair lady has carried you some strawberries, my lord," he said, "I have brought you a dish to put them in;" and taking the basket, he emptied it slowly into the silver plate.
"Thanks, Ingelby, thanks," replied the Prince with a look of total indifference as to what he did with the fruit. "Methinks, if you had brought me some cream also it would have been as well."
"Your lordship shall have it immediately," answered the officer. "They are fine berries, so early in the season."
"They will refresh me, after the fever," said Edward; "for still my mouth feels dry."
"You shall have the cream directly, my good lord," rejoined the officer, and left the room.
Edward and De Clare looked at each other with a smile, and the note was soon re-read and totally destroyed.