o the people; but now
she spoke direct to them all, and it had its immediate reward--the
acclamations were as those with which she was greeted when she first
passed through the streets of London on inheriting the crown.

Well pleased, she continued: "This I will do with expedition and
weightiest judgment, for of little account though I am, he that
sits with the Queen of England in this realm must needs be a prince
indeed.... So be ye sure of this that ye shall have your heart-most
wishes, and there shall be one to come after me who will wear this crown
even as I have worn, in direct descent, my father's crown. Our dearest
sister, the Queen of the Scots, hath been delivered of a fair son; and
in high affection the news thereof she hath sent me, with a palfry which
I shall ride among you in token of the love I bear her Majesty. She hath
in her time got an heir to the throne with which we are ever in kinship
and alliance, and I in my time shall give ye your heart's desire."

Angele, who had, with palpitating heart and swimming head, seen
Michel de la Foret leave the lists and disappear among the trees, as
mysteriously as he came, was scarce conscious of the cheers and riotous
delight that followed Elizabeth's tactful if delusive speech to the
people. A few whispered words from the Duke's Daughter had told her that
Michel had obeyed the Queen's command in entering the lists and taking
up the challenge; and that she herself, carrying the royal message to
him and making arrangements for his accoutrement and mounting, had urged
him to obedience. She observed drily that he had needed little pressure,
and that his eyes had lighted at the prospect of the combat. Apart
from his innate love of fighting, he had realised that in the moment of
declining to enter the Queen's service he had been at a disadvantage,
and that his courage was open to attack by the incredulous or malicious.
This would have mattered little were it not that he had been given
unusual importance as a prisoner by the Queen's personal notice of
himself. He had, therefore, sprung to the acceptance, and sent his
humble duty to the Queen by her winsome messenger, who, with conspicuous
dramatic skill, had arranged secretly, with the help of a Gentleman
Pensioner and the Master of the Horse, his appearance and his exit.
That all succeeded as she had planned quickened her pulses, and made
her heart still warmer to Angele, who, now that all was over, and her
Huguenot lo