What remained might rest unjustified to my great content; small comfort had I won from so much as had come to pass.

I had loved where the King loved, and my youth, though it raised its head again, still reeled under the blow; I knew what the King hid--aye, it might be more than one thing that he hid; my knowledge landed me where I lay now, in close confinement with a gaoler at my door.

For my own choice, I would crave the Vicar's pardon, would compound with destiny, and, taking the proportion of fate's gifts already dealt to me in lieu of all, would go in peace to humbler doings, beneath the dignity of dark prophecy, but more fit to give a man quiet days and comfort in his life.

Indeed, as my lord Quinton had said long ago, there was strange wine in the King's cup, and I had no desire to drink of it.

Yet who would not have been moved by the strange working of events which made the old woman's prophecy seem the true reading of a future beyond guess or reasonable forecast?
I jeered and snarled at myself, at Betty, at her prophecy, at the Vicar's credulity.