o him. There is no true man. Hope not for one. Hope not for any one.
The great Cardinal builded those walls and that palace--and where is
he?'

'Yet,' Katharine said, 'Privy Seal that is was true to him and
profited exceedingly.'

Lady Rochford shook her head.

'For a little while truth may help you,' she said; 'but your name in
the end shall be but a stink.'

'Ay,' Katharine answered her; 'but ye shall gain at the end of all.
For I hold it for certain that because, to the uttermost dregs of his
cup, Cromwell was true to his master Wolsey, before the throne of God
much shall be pardoned him.'

The old woman answered bitterly:

'The throne of God is a long way from here.'

'Please it Mary and the saints,' Katharine said, 'the ten years to
come shall bring Heaven a thousand leagues nearer to this land.' But
her words died away because the Lady Rochford's mouth fell open.

From the terrace a great square man led down a tiny, small man, giving
the child his finger to help him down the steps. It clung to him, the
little, squared replica of himself, sturdily and with a blonde, small
face laughing up into his father's that laughed down past a huge
shoulder. Henry was dressed all in black, and his son too; the boy's
callow head shone in the sunshine, and they came dallying down the
little path, many faces and shoulders peering over the terrace wall at
them. Once the child stumbled, loosed his hold of his father's finger
and came down upon all fours. He crawled to the pathside, filled his
little hands with leaves, and held them up towards his sire; and they
could hear the King say:

'Who-hoop, Ned! Princes walk not like quadrumanes,' as he bent to take
the leaves. The child twisted himself, gripping his little fingers
into Henry's garter, and, catching again at his finger, pulled his
father towards their bower.

The Lady Rochford rose, but Katharine sat where she was to smile upon
the child and brush his head with a pink tassel of her sleeve. The
little prince hid his face in the voluminous velvet of his father's
vast thighs. The King, diffusing a great and embracing pride, laughed
to Lady Rochford.

'Ye played cat's-cradle,' he said. 'I warrant ye brought it not beyond
seven changes. Time was when I have done fourteen with a lady if her
hands were white enough.'

He threw away the green leaves of the clove pinks that his son had
given him, and took the blue and silver loop from the old woman's
hands. He sat him