y's pardon"--Angele's heart stood still. Her
love had not pierced his disguise, though Leicester's hate had done
so on the instant--"I crave your noble Majesty's grace," answered the
stranger, "that I may still keep my face covered in humility. My voice
speaks for no country and for no prince. I have fought for mine own
honour, and to prove to England's Queen that she hath a champion who
smiteth with strong arm, as on me and my steed this hath been seen
to-day."

"Gallantly thought and well said," answered Elizabeth; "but England's
champion and his strong arm have no victory. If gifts were given they
must needs be cut in twain. But answer me, what is your country? I
will not have it that any man pick up the gauge of England for his own
honour. What is your country?

"I am an exile, your high Majesty; and the only land for which I
raise my sword this day is that land where I have found safety from my
enemies."

The Queen turned and smiled at the Duke's Daughter. "I knew not where
my own question might lead, but he hath turned it to full account," she
said, under her breath. "His tongue is as ready as his spear. Then ye
have both laboured in England's honour, and I drink to you both," she
added, and raised to her lips a glass of wine which a page presented.
"I love ye both--in your high qualities," she hastened to add with dry
irony, and her eye rested mockingly on Leicester.

"My lords and gentlemen and all of my kingdom," she added in a clear
voice, insistent in its force, "ye have come upon May Day to take
delight of England in my gardens, and ye are welcome. Ye have seen such
a sight as doeth good to the eyes of brave men. It hath pleased me well,
and I am constrained to say to you what, for divers great reasons, I
have kept to my own counsels, labouring for your good. The day hath
come, however, the day and the hour when ye shall know that wherein I
propose to serve you as ye well deserve. It is my will--and now I see my
way to its good fulfilment--that I remain no longer in that virgin state
wherein I have ever lived."

Great cheering here broke in, and for a time she could get no further.
Ever alive to the bent of the popular mind, she had chosen a perfect
occasion to take them into her confidence--however little or much she
would abide by her words, or intended the union of which she spoke. In
the past she had counselled with her great advisers, with Cecil and the
rest, and through them messages were borne t