d then a little echo, a loud one and
then two more.

'Before God!' the King said, 'that knave shall eat ten years of prison
bread.'

His wife looked still over the wooded enclosures, the little stone
walls, and the copses. A small cloud had come before the sun, and its
shadow was moving leisurely across the ridge where stood the roofless
abbey.

'The maid shall have the best man I can give her,' the King said.

'Why, no good man would wed her!' Katharine answered dully.

Henry said--

'Anan?' Then he fingered the dagger on the chain before his chest.

'Why,' he added slowly, 'then the Magister shall die by the rope. It is
an offence that can be quitted with death. It is time such a thing were
done.'

Katharine's dull silence spurred him; he shrugged his shoulders and
heaved a deep breath out.

'Why,' he said, 'a man can be found to wed the wench.'

She moved one hand and uttered--

'I would not wed her to such a man!' as if it were a matter that was not
much in her thoughts.

'Then she may go into a nunnery,' the King said; 'for before three
months are out we will have many nunneries in this realm.'

She looked upon him a little absently, but she smiled at him to give him
pleasure. She was thinking that she wished she had not wedded him; but
she smiled because, things being as they were, she thought that she had
all the authorities of the noble Greeks and Romans to bid her do what a
good wife should.

He laughed at her griefs, thinking that they were all about Margot
Poins. He uttered jolly grossnesses; he said that she little knew the
way of courts if she thought that a man, and a very good man, might not
be found to wed the wench.

She was troubled that he could not better read what was upon her mind,
for she was thinking that her having consented to his making null his
marriage with the Princess of Cleves that he might wed her would render
her work always the more difficult. It would render her more the target
for evil tongues, it would set a sterner and a more stubborn opposition
against her task of restoring the Kingdom of God within that realm.

Henry said--

'Ye hannot guessed what my secret was? What have I done for thee this
day?'

She still looked away over the lands. She made her face smile--

'Nay, I know not. Ha' ye brought me the musk I love well?'

He shook his head.

'It is more than that!' he said.

She still smiled--

'Ha' ye--ha' ye--made make for me a new crown?'

Sh