The Guard ordered and grounded arms with a crash.
"Come, gentlemen," said Margaret, "I have made an end to your delirium of treason. You were once my people's chosen servants—who else shall I trust if I may not believe in you? I recall you to your oaths, your patriotism, your honour, your manhood. I ask you again to be my Ministers, to accept my love and confidence. One of you I except." And Margaret's eyes fell on Lord Roderic Scott. "Oh, be kind to me, gentlemen," her voice broke with a great sob. "I'd rather be a servant and scrub floors, yet I am Queen—you laid that burden on me, and I must reign until it pleases Heaven to let me die. But must I go on fighting all alone? Is there no one left who cares for England's honour?"
For a moment there was silence, then the First Lord, the aged Earl of Mendip, rose to answer.
"Dear madam, dear sovereign, please let me speak for my poor colleagues here, and comrades in wrong-doing. I am too old to blush—my blood is all needed at the heart which still beats only for the service of the Empire—but I'm sure I never dreamed I was such a villain. Your Majesty has youthful blood, and dauntless courage, but pardon me, not quite omniscient wisdom. Some vestiges of right remain to us, some quivering nerves of honour, even some shreds of manhood.
"In the evening of our lives we have had the grace to worship the Evening Star, we called her Margaret. The sun of our Finance was Mr. Brand. It is no censure if I say that the sun was sometimes rather hot for us. In a state of ecstasy, perhaps, he fell from the heavens, came too near, and burned us. Were we a little restive at being burned? Was it unnatural that, in the agony of a world destroyed, we forgot our worship of the Evening Star?
"Well, well, I shall pursue the metaphor no further. Mr. Brand has gone with Ulster, and the unfortunate Prince Rupert, to face a greater tribunal than ours."
"He is not dead!" cried Margaret.
"Stripped of his power, wounded, a fugitive——"
"The man who saved the honour of the Empire."
"The man who wrecked the world!"