"You must help me," he said, his court drawl gone, his voice sincere.
"Robert," smiled my lady, "I have been helping you ever since I met you."
"'Tis admitted," he answered; "but, sweetheart, you must help me again."
She touched lightly his thin, powdered cheek with her free hand; her smile was lovely in its tenderness.
"What is your difficulty?"
Subtle, intricate and oblique as his politics always were, crafty and cunning as were his character and his actions, with this one person whom he trusted Sunderland was succinct and direct.
"The difficulty is the Princess Mary," he answered.
"Explain," she smiled.
He raised his hand and let it fall.
"You understand already. Saying this child, this Prince of Wales, will never reign—the Princess is the heiress, and not her husband, and after her is the Princess Anne. Now it is not my design to put a woman on the throne, nor the design of England—we want the Prince, and he is third in succession——"