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he will tell us what his business is.”
    “I come to warn Your Majesty.”
    “A familiar occupation of my subjects,” murmured Charles lightly, wondering where he had seen that face before; if the features had not been distorted in madness, he believed he would have recognized him.
    “I am the Holy Ghost come down from Heaven.”
    “Then I should say I am pleased to make your acquaintance and accept the fact that since you are holy and I am merely royal you are entitled to disturb my peace.”
    “I am the Holy Ghost!” cried the man, beating his chest.
    “Poor fellow,” said Charles. “He is indeed distressed.”
    “Mad, Your Majesty.”
    “What has brought you to this state?” asked Charles gently.
    “My wife,” said the man. “She is young … scarce eighteen.”
    “I see that like myself it is long since you were that age.”
    The King’s tone seemed to calm the man for he nodded soberly.
    “And she is unfaithful.”
    “A common failing and to be expected, when eighteen mates with …” The King came closer and peered into the man’s face.
    One of the guards asked His Majesty’s pleasure with regard to this disturber of his peace.
    “Treat him gently,” said the King. “He is much distressed.”
    “It’s the royalty. It bemuses them,” murmured the madman.
    Charles was puzzled; he knew the background of all his present mistresses and did not believe one of them could possibly be this man’s wife.
    “Pray tell me your name,” he said.
    “I am the Holy Ghost.”
    “Where do you live?”
    “In my house in Scotland Yard.”
    “Scarcely a fitting domicile,” murmured Charles.
    “He comes quite openly. The whole household knows. They laugh behind my back.”
    “An embarrassing situation for a celestial being.” Charles signed to the guards. “Take him away. Take him to his home and let me know who he is. Perhaps I will speak to his pretty young wife.”
    One of the guards said: “Your Majesty, he is Sir John Denham.”
    “John Denham of a surety. Now I remember. Our Irish poet. He was loyal to our cause. And now he has come to this through marrying a young wife. Well it is a folly many commit and suffer for. Take him quietly to his home.”
    Now it was clear to Charles. As he returned to his apartments he remembered that the royal lover was his brother James whom everyone knew had taken Margaret Denham, this man’s young wife, to be his mistress. The whole Court would now be talking of how the liaison between Margaret Denham and the Duke of York had driven poor John Denham mad. How like James to involve himself in such a scandal.
    There was something ineffectual about James. He was a good fellow—affectionate, sentimental, and doomed to attract trouble because he simply did not know how to live. He mismanaged his life. Why had James not come to see him earlier when he was summoned? Charles had wanted to settle the unfortunate affair of Clarendon and who could explain what had to be explained more tactfully than the old man’s son-in-law. There again James was a fool. His marriage was one of love, he had declared; he would have no one but Clarendon’s daughter and she, of course, was very eager to have him—not only because of his royal blood and the fact that he was heir presumptive to the throne, but at the time of that trouble she had been growing bigger every week. Clarendon’s daughter and a commoner! James would always be in trouble.
    And now the husband of his mistress was going about declaring he was the Holy Ghost and the reason was that James had made him a cuckold.
    Charles was feeling exasperated with James when a message was brought to him that his brother was asking for an audience.
    Charles commanded that he be brought immediately.
    “Well, brother?” he said.
    James bowed stiffly; then his manner relaxed. He was not unlike Charles, not so tall but even so more than medium height; and he had a natural dignity. His features were similar; the difference was in