"Your lordship will observe that I did but smile." "Mr.Wilding," said Monmouth darkly, "we are not pleased with you." "In that case," returned Wilding, more and more irritated, "Your Majesty expected of me more than was possible to any man." "You have wasted your time in London, sir," the Duke explained.

"We sent you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves.

What have you done ?" "As much as a man could..." Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted him.
"As little as a man could," he answered.

"Were His Grace not the most foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward for the fine things you have done in London." Mr.Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his slanting eyes looked wicked.

He was not a man readily moved to anger, but to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself the mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than he could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed himself in London--where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly expectation of arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had--should be acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him almost sick with disgust.