to catch the fever and swell with indignation. He put Mary away
from him, and striding up and down the room exclaimed, in a voice that
all could hear, "The dog! the dog! to treat my sister so. My sister!
My father's daughter! My sister! The first princess of England and
queen of France for his mistress! By every god that ever breathed,
I'll chastise this scurvy cur until he howls again. I swear it by my
crown, if it cost me my kingdom," and so on until words failed him.
But see how he kept his oath, and see how he and Francis hobnobbed not
long afterward at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Henry came back to Mary and began to question her, when she repeated
the story for him. Then it was she told of my timely arrival, and how,
in order to escape and protect herself from Francis, she had been
compelled to marry Brandon and flee with us.

She said: "I so wanted to come home to England and be married where my
dear brother could give me away, but I was in such mortal dread of
Francis, and there was no other means of escape, so--"

"God's death! If I had but one other sister like you, I swear before
heaven I'd have myself hanged. Married to Brandon? Fool! idiot! what
do you mean? Married to Brandon! Jesu! You'll drive me mad! Just one
other like you in England, and the whole damned kingdom might sink;
I'd have none of it. Married to Brandon without my consent!"

"No! no! brother," answered Mary softly, leaning affectionately
against his bulky form; "do you suppose I would do that? Now don't be
unkind to me when I have been away from you so long! You gave your
consent four months ago. Do you not remember? You know I would never
have done it otherwise."

"Yes, I know! You would not do anything--you did not want; and it
seems equally certain that in the end you always manage to do
everything you do want. Hell and furies!"

"Why! brother, I will leave it to my Lord Bishop of York if you did
not promise me that day, in this very room, and almost on this very
spot, that if I would marry Louis of France I might marry whomsoever I
wished when he should die. Of course you knew, after what I had said,
whom I should choose, so I went to a little church in company with
Queen Claude, and took my hair down and married him, and I am his
wife, and no power on earth can make it otherwise," and she looked up
into his face with a defiant little pout, as much as to say, "Now,
what are you going to do about it?"

Henry looked at her in