"
"God's Body! Is the rogue blabbing?"
"What else did your Majesty expect from a man smarting under a
sense of injury? He has published it broadcast that on the day
before Lady Robert broke her neck, you told him that she was dead
or nearly so. And he argues from it a guilty foreknowledge on
your Majesty's part of what was planned."
"A guilty foreknowledge!" She almost choked in rage, and then
fell to swearing as furiously in that moment as old King Harry at
his worst.
"Madame!" he cried, shaken by her vehemence. "I but report the
phrase he uses. It is not mine."
"Do you believe it?"
"I do not, madame. If I did I should not be here at present."
"Does any subject of mine believe it?"
"They suspend their judgment. They wait to learn the truth from
the sequel."
"You mean?"
"That if your motive prove to be such as de Quadra and others
allege, they will be in danger of believing."
"Be plain, man, in God's name. What exactly is alleged?"
He obeyed her very fully.
"That my lord contrived the killing of his wife so that he might
have liberty to marry your Majesty, and that your Majesty was
privy to the deed." He spoke out boldly, and hurried on before
she could let loose her wrath.
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