account of the honours accorded to the earl by Louis XI., greater than
those ever before manifested to a subject, and proceeded thus:--

"But it is just I should apprise you that there be strange rumours as
to the marvellous love that King Louis shows my lord the earl. He
lodgeth in the next house to him, and hath even had an opening made in
the partition-wall between his own chamber and the earl's. Men do say
that the king visits him nightly, and there be those who think that so
much stealthy intercourse between an English ambassador and the
kinsman of Margaret of Anjou bodeth small profit to our grace the
king."

"I observe," said Hastings, glancing to the superscription, "that this
letter is addressed to my Lord Rivers. Can he avouch the fidelity of
his correspondent?"

"Surely, yes," answered Rivers; "it is a gentleman of my own blood."

"Were he not so accredited," returned Hastings, "I should question the
truth of a man who can thus consent to play the spy upon his lord and
superior."

"The public weal justifies all things," said the Earl of Worcester
(who, though by marriage nearly connected to Warwick, eyed his power
with the jealous scorn which the man of book-lore often feels for one
whose talent lies in action),--"so held our masters in all state-
craft, the Greek and Roman."

"Certes," said Sir Anthony Woodville, "it grieveth the pride of an
English knight that we should be beholden for courtesies to the born