"Is that a pledge?" demanded Cromwell. "Is Your Majesty sincere with me?"
Charles rose.
"What have I to gain by insincerity?" he said; and again his cane stirred the drifting shrivelled leaves.
"And I must speak my side," he added. "It is my wish to show you that loyalty may bring more profit and honour than rebellion."
"What manner of profit?" asked Cromwell. "If you mean personal profit, why, I am well enough." ('Ay, with my Lord Worchester's lands,' thought Charles bitterly): "two of my wenches are wed, my eldest son is settled, the younger making good progress, for my other little maids and their mother I can provide—what more should I want? For Henry Ireton I can say the same."
"Yet I can gild this honourable prosperity," replied the King. "When my Lord Essex died, his title—his title died with him—you, methinks, are of the first Earl's house——"
"Ah!" cried Cromwell sharply, and flushed all over his face and neck.
"Oliver Cromwell may take the rank of Thomas Cromwell, who was also the terror and the help of a king," continued Charles, with smiling lips and narrowed eyes.
The blood was still staining the Lieutenant-General's face; his forehead was crimson up to the thick brown hair; he looked on the ground in a fashion that was embarrassed, almost stricken.
'I have not offered enough,' thought Charles; aloud he said—