“Pray what was your business there?” demanded the King.

“I fear,” replied Wilton, “I must trouble your majesty with some long details to enable you to understand the object of my going.”

“Go on,” was William’s laconic reply; and the young gentleman proceeded to tell him, that having been employed in recovering Lady Laura from those who had carried her off, he had learned in the course of his inquiries in London that she was likely to be heard of in that neighbourhood.

“I judged it likely to be so myself, sire,” continued Wilton, “because I believed her to have been carried off by some persons belonging to a party of Jacobites who were known to be caballing against the government, though to what extent was not then ascertained.”

“And what made you judge,” demanded the King, “that she had been carried off by these men?”

“Because, sire,” replied Wilton, “the lady’s father had been an acquaintance of Sir John Fenwick, one of the most notorious of the persons now implicated in the present foul plot against your majesty’s life and crown.  With him the Duke of Gaveston, I found, had quarrelled some time previously, and I suspected, though I had no proof thereof, that this quarrel had been occasioned by the Duke strongly differing from Sir John Fenwick in his political views, and refusing to take any part in any designs against the government.”

“I am glad to hear this of the Duke, sir,” replied the King.  “Then it was out of revenge, you believe, they carried away the young lady?”

“Rather out of a desire to have a hold upon the Duke,” replied Wilton.  “I found afterwards, your majesty, that their intention was to send the young lady to France, and I judged throughout that their design was to force the Duke into an intrigue which they found he would not meddle with willingly.”

William III., though he was himself of a very taciturn character, and not fond of loquacity in others, was yet fond of full explanations, always sitting in judgment, as it were, upon what was said to him, and passing sentence in his own breast.  He now made Wilton go over again the particulars of Lady Laura’s being taken away, though it was evident that he had heard all the facts before, and obliged him to enter into every minute detail which in any way affected the question.

When this was done, without any other comment than a look to the gentleman on his left hand, he fixed his eyes again upon Wilton, and asked,—­“Now, where did you learn that these conspirators were likely to be found in Kent?”

“I heard it from a gentleman named Green,” replied Wilton, “whom I met with at a tavern in St. James’s-street.”

“Green is a very common name,” said the King.

“I do not believe that it is his real name,” replied Wilton; “but what his real name is I do not know.  I had not seen him often before; but he informed me of these facts, and I followed his advice and directions.”