don answered with a sad little smile from the midst of his
reverie. "It is really not so much the doubt as the certainty of it
that troubles me." Then, starting to his feet: "If I thought she had
lied to me; if I thought she could wantonly lead me on to suffer so
for her, I would kill her, so help me God."

"Do not think that. Whatever her faults, and she has enough, there is
no man on earth for her but you. Her love has come to her through a
struggle against it because it was her master. That is the strongest
and best, in fact the only, love; worth all the self-made passions in
the world."

"Yes, I believe it. I know she has faults; even my partiality cannot
blind me to them, but she is as pure and chaste as a child, and as
gentle, strong and true as--as--a woman. I can put it no stronger. She
has these, her redeeming virtues, along with her beauty, from her
plebeian grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville, who, with them, won a royal
husband and elevated herself to the throne beside the chivalrous
Edward. This sweet plebeian heritage bubbles up in the heart of Mary,
and will not down, but neutralizes the royal poison in her veins and
makes a goddess of her." Then with a sigh: "But if her faults were a
thousand times as many, and if each fault were a thousand times as
great, her beauty would atone for all. Such beauty as hers can afford
to have faults. Look at Helen and Cleopatra, and Agnes Sorel. Did
their faults make them less attractive? Beauty covereth more sins than
charity--and maketh more grief than pestilence."

The last clause was evidently an afterthought.

After his month in Newgate with the hangman's noose about his neck all
because of Mary's cruel neglect, I wondered if her beauty would so
easily atone for her faults. I may as well tell you that he changed
his mind concerning this particular doctrine of atonement.

_CHAPTER XI_

_Louis XII a Suitor_

As soon as I could leave Brandon, I had intended to go down to Windsor
and give vent to my indignation toward the girls, but the more I
thought about it, the surer I felt there had, somehow, been a mistake.
I could not bring myself to believe that Mary had deliberately
permitted matters to go to such an extreme when it was in her power to
prevent it. She might have neglected her duty for a day or two, but,
sooner or later, her good impulses always came to her rescue, and,
with Jane by her side to urge her on, I was almost sure she would have
liberate