Persuaded the substitution of Rudolf for the king was the only thing would serve our turn, we asked no longer whether it possible, but sought only the means to make it safe and safe.
But Rudolf himself had not spoken.

Sapt's appeal and the queen's imploring cry had shaken but not overcome him; he had wavered, but he was not won.

Yet there was no talk of impossibility or peril in his mouth, any more than in ours: those were not what gave him pause.

The score on which he hesitated was whether the thing should be done, not whether it could; our appeals were not to brace a failing courage, but cajole a sturdy sense of honor which found the imposture distasteful so soon as it seemed to serve a personal end.

To serve the king he had played the king in old days, but he did not love to play the king when the profit of it was to be his own.