tism the mantle of his protection.

Cromwell broke in upon their thoughts with his swift speech.

'Sirs,' he uttered, 'then what ye will shall come to pass.
Wriothesley, I pardon thee; get thee back to Paris to thy mission.
Archbishop, I trow thou shalt have the head of that wench. Her cousin
shall be brought here again from France.'

Lascelles, the Archbishop's spy, who kept his gaze upon
Throckmorton's, saw the large man's eyes shift suddenly from one board
of the floor to another.

'That man is not true,' he said to himself, and fell into a train of
musing. But from the others Cromwell had secured the meed of wonder
that he desired. He had closed the interview with a dramatic speech;
he had given them something to talk of.

VII

He held Throckmorton in the small room that contained upon its high
stand the Privy Seal of England in an embroidered purse. All red and
gold, this symbol of power held the eye away from the dark-green
tapestry and from the pigeon-holes filled with parchment scrolls
wherefrom there depended so many seals each like a gout of blood. The
room was so high that it appeared small, but there was room for
Cromwell to pace about, and here, walking from wall to wall, he
evolved those schemes that so fast held down the realm. He paced
always, his hands behind his back, his lips moving one upon the other
as if he ruminated--(His foes said that he talked thus with his
familiar fiend that had the form of a bee.)--and his black cap with
ear-flaps always upon his head, for he suffered much with the earache.

He walked now, up and down and up and down, saying nothing, whilst
from time to time Throckmorton spoke a word or two. Throckmorton
himself had his doubts--doubts as to how the time when it would be
safe to let it be known that he had betrayed his master might be found
to fit in with the time when his master must find that he had betrayed
him. He had, as he saw it, to gain time for Katharine Howard so she
might finally enslave the King's desires. That there was one weak spot
in her armour he thought he knew, and that was her cousin that was
said to be her lover. That Cromwell knew of her weak spot he knew too;
that Cromwell through that would strike at her he knew too. All
depended upon whether he could gain time so that Cromwell should be
down before he could use his knowledge.

For that reason he had devised the scheme of making Cromwell feel a
safety about the affairs of Cleves. Udal for