"Six months ago I would have run anywhere to serve you.
But in six months many things have happened; and I cannot serve a Prince any more who cannot keep his word even to save the innocent.

I had best be gone again to Rome, I think, and see what they can give me there.

I am sick of England, which I once loved so much." It was those very words--or others very like them that I said.

I do not know where I got the courage to say them, for my life lay altogether in the King's hand: a word from him, or even silence, and I should have kicked my heels that night in Newgate, and a week or two later in the air, on a charge of being in with the Jesuits in their plot.

Yet I said them; for I could say nothing else.
His Majesty's face turned black as thunder as I began; and when I was done it was all stiff with pride.
"That is your mind, Mr.Mallock, then ?" he said.
"That is my mind, Sir," I answered him.
And then a change went over his face once more.