“Who is this?” asked Lord Grey with an amazed look. “Surely Colonel Sidney was never any concern of your Grace?”
He stood with the picture in his hand and Monmouth looked up at him from the old worn and folded letters he was smoothing out.
“It is Colonel Sidney,” he said.
“Well?” asked Lord Grey intently.
“He was my father,” said Monmouth; then he began laughing again, and it had the most doleful sound of anything I have ever heard. I could not grasp what had been said, but my lord Grey with his quick comprehension seemed in a moment to understand and value this truth.
“Your father!” he said softly, and added: “To think we never saw it!” which was an extraordinary thing to say; yet, on looking at the likeness in little and on the fair agonised face staring across the candlelight one might notice that they were in almost every detail the same, and methought I was a very fool never to have observed before how these two men were alike, even to little manners and fashions of speech.
And being that I saw the tragic pitifulness of it all, I could do no more than laugh dismally also.
“See you these letters if you want proof,” said Monmouth.
“There is no need,” answered my lord Grey. “The likeness is enough.” Then he repeated: “And we never saw it!”
“No,” said his Grace half-fiercely; “you never saw it–I was always the King’s son to you–instead of that I am scarce a gentleman.… Now you know why I cannot go on.… I am no Stewart, I have no royal blood.…”