his mouth that for a minute
he greeted these frightened lords in the doorway. They stood there
silent, the Archbishop very dejected, the Lord d'Espahn, with his grey
beard, very erect and ruddy featured.

'Why, God help me,' the King said, 'what make of Court is this of mine
where a King may not send a messenger to his wife?'

The Archbishop swallowed in his throat; the Lord d'Espahn did not speak
but gazed before him.

'You shall tell me what befell, for I am ignorant,' the King said; 'but
first I will tell you what I do know.

'Why, come out with me into the corridor, wife,' he cried over his
shoulder. 'For it is not fitting that these lords come into thy
apartment. I will walk with them and talk.'

He took the Archbishop by the elbow and the Lord d'Espahn by the upper
arm, and, leaning upon them, propelled them gently before him.

'Thus it was,' he said; 'this cousin of my wife's was in the King o'
Scots' good town of Edinboro'. And, being there, he was much upon my
conscience--for I would not have a cousin of my wife's be there in
exile, he being one that formerly much fended for her....'

He spoke out his words and repeated these things for his own purposes,
the Queen following behind. When they were come to the corridor-end,
there he found, as he had thought, a knot of lords and gentlemen,
babbling with their ears pricked up.

'Nay, stay,' he said, 'this is a matter that all may hear.'

There were there the Duke of Norfolk and his son, young Surrey with the
vacant mouth, Sir Henry Wriothesley with the great yellow beard, the
Lord Dacre of the North, the old knight Sir N. Rochford, Sir Henry Peel
of these parts, with a many of their servants, amongst them Lascelles.
Most of them were in scarlet or purple, but many were in black. The Earl
of Surrey had the Queen's favour of a crowned rose in his bonnet, for he
was of her party. The gallery opened out there till it was as big as a
large room, broad and low-ceiled, and lit with torches in irons at the
angles of it. On rainy days the Queen's maids were here accustomed to
play at stool-ball.

'This is a matter that all may hear,' the King said, 'and some shall
render account.' He let the Lord d'Espahn and the Archbishop go, so that
they faced him. The Queen looked over his shoulder.

'As thus ...' he said.

And he repeated how it had lain upon his conscience and near his heart
that the Queen's good cousin languished in the town of Edinburgh.

'And how n