, would have been ruin of herself,
her husband and her child; and for these she lived."

Elizabeth's eyes had kindled. Perhaps never in her life had the life at
Court been so exposed to her. The simple words, meant but to convey the
story, and with no thought behind, had thrown a light on her own Court,
on her own position. Adept in weaving a sinuous course in her policy, in
making mazes for others to tread, the mazes which they in turn prepared
had never before been traced beneath her eyes to the same vivid and
ultimate effect.

"Help me, ye saints, but things are not at such a pass in this place!"
she said abruptly, but with weariness in her voice. "Yet sometimes I
know not. The Court is a city by itself, walled and moated, and hath a
life all its own. 'If there be found ten honest men within the city yet
will I save it,' saith the Lord. By my father's head, I would not risk
a finger on the hazard if this city, this Court of Elizabeth were set
'twixt the fire from Heaven and eternal peace. In truth, child, I would
lay me down and die in black disgust were it not that one might come
hereafter would make a very Sodom or Gomorrah of this land: and out
yonder--out in all my counties, where the truth of England is among my
poor burgesses, who die for the great causes which my nobles profess but
risk not their lives--out yonder all that they have won, and for which
I have striven, would be lost.... Speak on. I have not heard so plain a
tongue and so little guile these twenty years."

Angele continued, more courage in her voice. "In the midst of it all
came the wave of the new faith upon my mother. And before ill could fall
upon her from her foes, she died and was at rest. Then we returned
to Rouen, my father and I, and there we lived in peril, but in great
happiness of soul until the day of massacre. That night in Paris we were
given greatly of the mercy of God."

"You were there--you were in the massacre at Paris?"

"In the house of the Duke of Langon, with whom was resting after a
hazardous enterprise, Michel de la Foret."

"And here beginneth the second lesson," said the Queen with a smile on
her lips; but there was a look of scrutiny in her eyes, and something
like irony in her tone. "And I will swear by all the stars of Heaven
that this Michel saved ye both. Is it not so?"

"It is even so. By his skill and bravery we found our way to safety, and
in a hiding-place near to our loved Rouen watched him return from t