"Speak what you wish; it stays with me," replied Count John.
"It is this then: When I and the Duke of Alva were hostages in France, there was an occasion when I was with King Henry hunting—in the forest of Vincennes it was—and we two being apart from the others, the King fell to talking of the peace between him and King Philip, and his great eagerness for the concluding of this. Then, drawing on in his discourse, he did disclose to me a deep design there was between him and my King to exterminate heretics—which design the Duke of Alva was privy to and arranging with him, and he thought I too knew of it, so discussed it with me. And it seemed that this secret project was no less than to destroy all heretics in the realms of France and Spain, and to so uproot the doctrines of Luther that they would never grow again. And this, he said, might be partly done by a general slaughter of these heretics, but the time was not yet ripe. And from his speech I understood that if one looked but askance at an image he might be cast into the flames."
"And you—what did you do?" asked John, startled.
"I feigned that I knew as he thought I did, marked and noted what he said, and breathed no word of it," replied the Prince simply, as if such self-control and astuteness were the commonest things.
Count John was silent with astonishment and interest.
"And therefore, as you remember," continued William, "as soon as I was returned I did influence the States General to beg the King to send forth the foreign soldiery, which he could not well refuse."
"Ah, it was you, not the States!" exclaimed John.
"As His Majesty guessed," smiled William. "'Not the States, but you—you!' he said,—in the second person, John. That was in a Flushing street, and I left him there and would not see him to his ship."
"But since then he has been as favourable to you as always," said Count John anxiously, "even in the matter of this marriage, which was hateful to him, he gave in and sent you a gift."
"Yet," replied the Prince, "he would put me and the other Stadtholders beneath the foot of Granvelle, who is, I do not doubt, his chosen instrument to commence this work of exterminating heresy in the States."