Talbot in particular related how, in one of his secret visits to her, he had unluckily overturned the Chancellor's inkstand upon a pile of papers, and how cleverly she had averted a discovery by laying the blame of the accident on her monkey.
These stories, which, if they had been true, would never have passed the lips of any but the basest of mankind, were pure inventions.

Talbot was soon forced to own that they were so; and he owned it without a blush.
The injured lady became Duchess of York.

Had her husband been a man really upright and honourable, he would have driven from his presence with indignation and contempt the wretches who had slandered her.

But one of the peculiarities of James's character was that no act, however wicked and shameful, which had been prompted by a desire to gain his favour, ever seemed to him deserving of disapprobation.

Talbot continued to frequent the court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of chief pandar to her husband.