The procession moved on, and still on, through ever-augmenting splendors

And ever-augmenting tempests of welcome; but to Tom Canty they were as if

They had not been. He neither saw nor heard. Royalty had lost its grace and

Sweetness; its pomps were become a reproach. Remorse was eating his heart

out. He said, 'Would God I were free of my captivity!'

He had unconsciously dropped back into the phraseology of the first days of

His compulsory greatness.

The shining pageant still went winding like a radiant and interminable

Serpent down the crooked lanes of the quaint old city, and through the

Huzzaing hosts; but still the king rode with bowed head and vacant eyes,

seeing only his mother's face and that wounded look in it.

'Largess, largess!' The cry fell upon an unheeding ear.

'Long live Edward of England!' It seemed as if the earth shook with the

Explosion; but there was no response from the king. He heard it only as one

Hears the thunder of the surf when it is blown to the ear out of a great

Distance, for it was smothered under another sound which was still nearer, in

His own breast, in his accusing conscience — a voice which kept repeating

those shameful words, 'I do not know you, woman!'

The words smote upon the king's soul as the strokes of a funeral bell smite

Upon the soul of a surviving friend when they remind him of secret treacheries