ss had instigated the visit of
the sheriffs to the Old Swan.

"What has your angel done this morning to displease her king?" asked
Frances, with a laugh so merry that one might well have supposed it
genuine.

"What has she done this morning?" repeated the king. "She has been to
visit the man who seeks the king's life. That is what she has done."

He had hit the nail squarely on the head at the first stroke, but whether
his accuracy was a mere guess, or the result of knowledge, I did not
know. I trembled, awaiting the outcome of my cousin's conference.

At first Frances appeared to be horror-stricken, and her surprise seemed
to know no bounds, but after a moment of splendid acting, her manner
changed to one of righteous indignation, touched with grief, because the
king had so wrongfully accused her.

"Your Majesty horrifies me!" she exclaimed, stepping back from the king.
"Is there a man in all England who would seek his king's life?"

"There is," returned his Majesty. "And you have been to visit him."

Frances denied nothing. She was simply stunned by grief and benumbed by a
sense of outrage put upon her by the king. So after a moment of
inimitable pantomime, she answered, speaking softly:--

"I fear a gentle madness has touched your Majesty's brain, else you would
not so cruelly accuse me. You have so many weighty affairs to trouble you
and to prey on your mind that it is no wonder--"

"Did you not set out this morning with the avowed purpose of going to
your father's house?" asked the king.

"Yes, your Majesty," she answered soothingly, almost pityingly. "What
then?"

"Did you go there?" asked Charles.

"No, your Majesty."

"Where did you go?"

"Am I a prisoner in Whitehall that I may not come and go at will?" she
asked indignantly, knowing well the maxim of battle that the best way to
meet a charge is by a countercharge. "If so, I pray leave to go home to
my father, where I shall not be spied upon and suspected of evil if I but
go abroad for an hour."

Her grief had changed to indignation, and she turned her face from the
king, drying the supposed tears and exhibiting her temper in irresistible
pantomime. The king was but a man, so of course Frances's tears and her
just anger routed him. A brave man may stand against powder and steel,
but he must flee before fire and flood.

Immediately the king became apologetic: "I do not suspect you of evil,
but of thoughtlessness, my beautiful one," he said, t