“That you cannot decide; the manner only is in your power,” said Lord Grey calmly, and I marvelled to think that he had been a coward in open field.
“I am not the King’s son—” his Grace cried out at him, and fell across a chair sick with unavailing love of life.
Lord Grey took up a candle and turned to the door, looking at him the while.
“Will you give James Stewart this triumph?” he asked.
This seemed the one thing to brace Monmouth, for those two had always hated each other strongly; James in the old days had feared my lord’s power, been jealous that he was the elder son of the elder son, and Monmouth seemed to remember that; yet a mean thought hurried on the heels of the manly reflection.
“He would give me my life for this,” he said weakly. “My life for this secret—”
“Good night,” said Lord Grey–a strange man–and left us.
The Duke seemed not to know that he had gone or that I remained; after a little he went into the bedchamber, but not to sleep, and all night I heard him weeping … such sick and bitter womanish sobs all through that long watch I kept.…
Colonel Sidney’s son!
Who were they who did this–and they who kept silence?