"I advise you yourself, Master Shakespeare," he said, "to keep free of such matters. Peril not your present favour by mixing in treasonable affairs, and so farewell."
"Nay, my Lord," said Shakespeare, "this gentleman, my friend, hath been most unjustly accused. He is one to whom I owe much love. I may not cease from making what interest I can in his favour."
"And I tell thee then," said Leicester, imperiously, "that in me you will find an opponent in his cause; my interest lieth in the very opposite direction, since I am informed by a law-man of your native town that, in right of my wife, I can claim some of those estates in Warwickshire so lately in possession of this Arderne."
Shakespeare felt surprised at this intimation, and immediately the interview terminated.
There was evidently a secret enemy at work, he thought, as he left the house; and, as he passed through the gateway, he ran against a man who was entering.
The poet was so wrapped in his own thoughts that he observed not the features of this person; but Grasp (for it was no less a person who was entering the courtyard) started at the well-known form of his sometime clerk, and, hesitating for the moment, seemed divided as to whether he should not defer his present business and follow the poet.
Whilst he stood undecided, Shakespeare took boat, and so Grasp turned towards the building.
"I shall find the pestilent fellow," he said, "and I shall also penetrate into the mystery of that fair Lindabrides who dwells beneath his roof, and masquerades about the city at nights. My certie, but I'll spoil his actings, his writings, his inditings, his poetizing, and rhapsodizing. I can myself indite, aye, and play a part, too, as well as he; and so, Master William Shakespeare, look to thyself, for thou art in jeopardy;" and so Grasp turned and proceeded, across the court of Leicester House rejoicing.