t
stranger, brave though he be? Why should she smile upon him?... Can you
not see, sweet lady?"

"You know well why the Queen detains him here," she answered calmly now.
"In the Queen's understanding with France, exiles who preach the
faith are free from extradition. You heard what the Queen required of
him--that on Trinity Day he should preach before her, and upon this
preaching should depend his safety."

"Indeed, so her Majesty said with great humour," replied Leicester. "So
indeed she said; but when we hide our faces a thin veil suffices. The
man is a soldier--a soldier born. Why should he turn priest now? I pray
you, think again. He was quick of wit; the Queen's meaning was clear to
him; he rose with seeming innocence to the fly, and she landed him at
the first toss. But what is forward bodes no good to you, dear star of
heaven. I have known the Queen for half a lifetime. She has wild whims
and dangerous fancies, fills her hours of leisure with experiences--an
artist is the Queen. She means no good to you."

She had made as if to leave him, though her eyes searched in vain for
the path which she should take; but she now broke in impatiently:

"Poor, unnoted though I am, the Queen of England is my friend," she
answered. "What evil could she wish me? From me she has naught to fear.
I am not an atom in her world. Did she but lift her finger I am done.
But she knows that, humble though I be, I would serve her to my last
breath; because I know, my Lord Leicester, how many there are who serve
her foully, faithlessly; and there should be those by her who would
serve her singly."

His eyes half closed, he beat his toe upon the ground. He frowned, as
though he had no wish to hurt her by words which he yet must speak. With
calculated thought he faltered.

"Yet do you not think it strange," he said at last, "that Monsieur de la
Foret should be within the palace ever, and that you should be banished
from the palace? Have you never seen the fly and the spider in the web?
Do you not know that they who have the power to bless or ban, to give
joy or withhold it, appear to give when they mean to withhold? God bless
us all--how has your innocence involved your judgment!"

She suddenly flushed to the eyes. "I have wit enough," she said acidly,
"to feel that truth which life's experience may not have taught me.
It is neither age nor evil that teaches one to judge 'twixt black and
white. God gives the true divination to human h