“Then Theodore did believe them dead.”

“At the time, cavalier; at the time, no doubt.  But more than twelve years later, being in Brussels—­” Here Marc’antonio pulled himself up, with a sudden dark flush and a look of confusion.

“Go on, my friend.  You were saying that twelve years later, happening to be in Brussels—­”

“By the merest chance, cavalier.  Before retiring to England King Theodore spent the most of his exile in Flanders and the Low Countries:  and in Brussels, as it happened, I had word of him and learned—­but without making myself known to him—­that he was seeking his two children.”

“Seeking them in Brussels?”

“At a venture, no doubt, cavalier.  Put the case that you were seeking two children, of whom you knew only that they were alive and somewhere in Europe—­like two fleas, as you might say, in a bundle of straw—­”

I looked at Marc’antonio and saw that he was lying, but politely forbore to tell him so.

“Then Theodore knew that his children were alive?” said I musing.  “Yet he gave my father to understand that he had no children.”

“Mbe, but he was a great liar, that Theodore?  Always when it profited, and sometimes for the pleasure of it.”

“Nevertheless, to disinherit his own son!”

Marc’antonio’s shoulders went up to his ears.  “He knew well enough what comedy he was playing.  Disinherit his own son?  We Corsicans, he might be sure, would never permit that:  and meanwhile your father’s money bought him out of prison.  Ajo, it is simple as milking the she-goat yonder!”

“If you knew my father better, Marc’antonio, you would find it not altogether so simple as you suppose.  King Theodore might have told my father that these children lived, and my father would yet have bought his freedom for their sake; yes, and helped him to the last shilling and the last drop of blood to restore them to the Queen their mother.”

“Verily, cavalier, I knew your father to be a madman,” said Marc’antonio, gravely, after considering my words for awhile.  “But such madness as you speak of, who could take into account?”

“Eh, Marc’antonio?  What acquaintance have you with my father, that you should call him mad?”

“I remember him well, cavalier, and his long sojourning with my late master the Count Ugo at his palace of Casalabriva above the Taravo, and the love there was between him and my young mistress that is now the Queen Emilia.  Lovers they were for all eyes to see but the old Count’s.  Mbe! we all gossiped of it, we servants and clansmen of the Colonne—­even I, that kept the goats over Bicchivano, on the road leading up to the palace, and watched the two as they walked together, and was of an age to think of these things.  A handsomer couple none could wish to see, and we watched them with good will; for the Englishman touched her hand with a kind of worship as a devout man touches his