Portland, with a little sigh of despair and weariness, went into the antechamber.
It was well lit and full of people. The King was seated on his camp-bed—a dishevelled, pitiful figure—lamenting to himself with a violence and boundless passion that had the force and incoherence of insanity.
The only one of the company who had the courage to approach him was a new-comer, my Lord Sunderland; pale, quiet, elegantly dressed, he stood between the King and the wall, and gazed down on his master with an extraordinary expression of resolution and consideration.
Portland went up to him, not without a sense of jealousy for the King's dignity, that was so shattered before these foreigners and a man like Sunderland.
"Sire," he said firmly. "Sire!"
William did not even look up; he was twisting his hands together and staring at the floor, breaking out into the bitter protests of a mind deranged.
Sunderland looked sharply at Portland.
"What do you want of him, my lord?" he asked,
"I would recall him to himself that he may take farewell of the Queen," answered Portland sternly. "But he, it seemeth, is no longer William of Nassau."
Sunderland made no answer to this; he laid his hand lightly on the King's shoulder.