surprise and then burst out laughing. "Married
to Brandon with your hair down?" And he roared again, holding his
sides. "Well, you do beat the devil; there's no denying that. Poor old
Louis! That was a good joke on him. I'll stake my crown he was glad to
die! You kept it warm enough for him, I make no doubt."

"Well," said Mary, with a little shrug of her shoulders, "he would
marry me."

"Yes, and now poor Brandon doesn't know the trouble ahead of him,
either. He has my pity, by Jove!"

"Oh, that is different," returned Mary, and her eyes burned softly,
and her whole person fairly radiated, so expressive was she of the
fact that "it was different."

Different? Yes, as light from darkness; as love from loathing; as
heaven from the other place; as Brandon from Louis; and that tells it
all.

Henry turned to Wolsey: "Have you ever heard anything equal to it, my
Lord Bishop?"

My Lord Bishop, of course, never had; nothing that even approached it.

"What are we to do about it?" continued Henry, still addressing
Wolsey.

[Illustration]

The bishop assumed a thoughtful expression, as if to appear deliberate
in so great a matter, and said: "I see but one thing that can be
done," and then he threw in a few soft, oily words upon the
troubled waters that made Mary wish she had never called him "thou
butcher's cur," and Henry, after a pause, asked: "Where is Brandon? He
is a good fellow, after all, and what we can't help we must endure.
He'll find punishment enough in you. Tell him to come home--I suppose
you have him hid around some place--and we'll try to do something for
him."

"What will you do for him, brother?" said Mary, not wanting to give
the king's friendly impulse time to weaken.

"Oh! don't bother about that now," but she held him fast by the hand
and would not let go.

"Well, what do you want? Out with it. I suppose I might as well give
it up easily, you will have it sooner or later. Out with it and be
done."

"Could you make him Duke of Suffolk?"

"Eh? I suppose so. What say you, my Lord of York?"

York was willing--thought it would be just the thing.

"So be it then," said Henry. "Now I am going out to hunt and will not
listen to another word. You will coax me out of my kingdom for that
fellow yet." He was about to leave the room when he turned to Mary,
saying: "By the way, sister, can you have Brandon here by Sunday next?
I am to have a joust."

Mary thought she could, ... and the great event