he woman said.

'Did she say aught?' the Lady Mary said.

'No! no!' the woman panted. Her hair had fallen loose in her coif, it
depended on to her shoulder.

'Tell on! tell on!' the Lady Mary said.

'They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in her
agony cried out, "Virtuous! virtuous!" till her senses went.'

Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees.

'Let me go, let me go,' she moaned. 'I will not speak before the Queen.
I had been as loyal as Margot Poins.... But I will not speak before the
Queen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But ... I will not----'

She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable
with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and
ran to the door. But there she cried out--

'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the
Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath.

'It is upon you if I speak,' she said. 'Merciful God, do not bid me
speak before the Queen!'

She held out her hands as if she had been praying.

'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fled
here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! Merciful
God! Bid me not to speak.'

'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.

The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharine
stood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, for
she thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears nor
eyes.

'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.

'God help you, be it on your head,' the woman cried out, 'that I speak
before the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. I
would not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!'

The Lady Mary's hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from her
opened fingers jarred on the hard floor.

'Merciful God!' she said. 'Have I such a father?'

'It was the King!' the woman said. 'His Highness came to life when he
heard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than she
reported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of a
marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.'

'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way to
tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother's
confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!'

'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye
wot--better than I did before--what th