For Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its
belongings. He will remain- doubt it not.'
CHAPTER XXVI
Disowned
THE king sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said:
''Tis strange- most strange. I cannot account for it.'
'No, it is not strange, my liege. I know him, and this conduct
is but natural. He was a rascal from his birth.'
'Oh, I spake not of him, Sir Miles.'
'Not of him? Then of what? What is it that is strange?'
'That the king is not missed.'
'How? Which? I doubt I do not understand.'
'Indeed! Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that
the land is not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my
person and making search for me? Is it no matter for commotion and
distress that the head of the state is gone?- that I am vanished
away and lost?'
'Most true, my king, I had forgot.' Then Hendon sighed, and
muttered to himself. 'Poor ruined mind- still busy with its pathetic
dream.'
'But I have a plan that shall right us both. I will write a paper,
in three tongues- Latin, Greek, and English- and thou shall haste away
with it to London in the morning. Give it to none but my uncle, the
Lord Hertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote
it. Then he will send for me.'
'Might it not be best, my prince, that we wait here until I
prove myself and make my rights secure to my domains? I should be so
much the better able then to-'
The king interrupted him imperiously:
'Peace! What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests,
contrasted with matters which concern the weal of a nation and the
integrity of a throne!' Then he added, in a gentle voice, as if he
were sorry for his severity, 'Obey and have no fear; I will right
thee, I will make thee whole- yes, more than whole.
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