h my throat.'

His great mouth relaxed as if he accepted as his due a piece of
skilful flattery. Suddenly she sank down upon her knees, her dress
spreading out beneath her, her hands extended and her red lips parted
as the beak of a bird opens with terror. He uttered lightly:

'Why, get up. You should kneel so only to your God,' and he touched
his cap, with his habitual heavy gesture, at the sacred name.

'I have somewhat to ask,' she whispered.

He laughed again.

'They are always asking! But get up. I have left my stick in my room.
Help me to my door.'

She felt the heavy weight of his arm upon her shoulder as soon as she
stood beside him.

He asked her suddenly what she knew of the Fortunate Islands that she
had talked of in her speech.

'They lie far in the Western Ocean; I had an Italian would have built
me ships to reach them,' he said, and Katharine answered:

'I do take them to be a fable of the ancients, for they had no heaven
to pray for.'

When his eyes were not upon her she was not afraid, and the heavy
weight of his hand upon her shoulder made her feel firm to bear it.
But she groaned inwardly because she had urgent words that must be
said, and she imagined that nothing could be calmer in the Fortunate
Islands themselves than this to walk and converse about their gracious
image that shone down the ages. He said, with a heavy, dull voice:

'I would give no little to be there.'

Suddenly she heard herself say, her heart leaping in her chest:

'I do not like the errand they have sent my cousin upon.'

The blessed Utopia of the lost islands had stirred in the King all
sorts of griefs that he would shake off, and all sorts of
remembrances of youth, of open fields, and a wide world that shall be
conquered--all the hopes and instincts of happiness, ineffable and
indestructible, that never die in passionate men. He said dully, his
thoughts far away:

'What errand have they sent him upon? Who is your goodly cousin?'

She answered:

'They put it about that he should murder Cardinal Pole,' and she shook
so much that he was forced to take his hand from her shoulder.

He leaned upon the manage rail, and halted to rest his leg that pained
him.

'It is a good errand enough,' he said.

She was panting like a bird that you hold in your hand, so that all
her body shook, and she blurted out:

'I would not that my cousin should murder a Churchman!' and before his
eyebrows could go up in an amazed an