“Apres, Monsieur?” says the Prince.

“I have but to beckon him from the window, and send him fifty yards, and he returns with a guard of men, and I deliver up to him the body of the person calling himself James the Third, for whose capture Parliament hath offered a reward of 500L., as your Royal Highness saw on our ride from Rochester.  I have but to say the word, and, by the heaven that made me, I would say it if I thought the Prince, for his honor’s sake, would not desist from insulting ours.  But the first gentleman of England knows his duty too well to forget himself with the humblest, or peril his crown for a deed that were shameful if it were done.”

“Has your lordship anything to say,” says the Prince, turning to Frank Castlewood, and quite pale with anger; “any threat or any insult, with which you would like to end this agreeable night’s entertainment?”

“I follow the head of our house,” says Castlewood, bowing gravely.  “At what time shall it please the Prince that we should wait upon him in the morning?”

“You will wait on the Bishop of Rochester early, you will bid him bring his coach hither; and prepare an apartment for me in his own house, or in a place of safety.  The King will reward you handsomely, never fear, for all you have done in his behalf.  I wish you a good night, and shall go to bed, unless it pleases the Marquis of Esmond to call his colleague, the watchman, and that I should pass the night with the Kensington guard.  Fare you well, be sure I will remember you.  My Lord Castlewood, I can go to bed to-night without need of a chamberlain.”  And the Prince dismissed us with a grim bow, locking one door as he spoke, that into the supping-room, and the other through which we passed, after us.  It led into the small chamber which Frank Castlewood or monsieur Baptiste occupied, and by which Martin entered when Colonel Esmond but now saw him in the chamber.

At an early hour next morning the Bishop arrived, and was closeted for some time with his master in his own apartment, where the Prince laid open to his counsellor the wrongs which, according to his version, he had received from the gentlemen of the Esmond family.  The worthy prelate came out from the conference with an air of great satisfaction; he was a man full of resources, and of a most assured fidelity, and possessed of genius, and a hundred good qualities; but captious and of a most jealous temper, that could not help exulting at the downfall of any favorite; and he was pleased in spite of himself to hear that the Esmond Ministry was at an end.

“I have soothed your guest,” says he, coming out to the two gentlemen and the widow; who had been made acquainted with somewhat of the dispute of the night before. (By the version we gave her, the Prince was only made to exhibit anger because we doubted of his intentions in respect to Beatrix; and to leave us, because we questioned his honor.) “But I think, all things considered, ’tis as well he should leave this house; and then, my Lady Castlewood,” says the Bishop, “my pretty Beatrix may come back to it.”