he bush. And be sure I left him openings to come in to
my tidings.'

Katharine hung her head and thought bitterly that she had had the
boldness; this other man reaped the spoils. He leaned forward and
sighed. Then he laughed.

'You might wonder that I love you,' he said. 'But it is in the nature
of profound politicians to love women that be simple, as it is the
nature of sinners to love them that be virtuous. Do not believe that
an evil man loveth evil. He contemns it. Do not believe that a
politician loveth guile. He makes use of it to carry him into such a
security that he may declare his true nature. Moreover, there is no
evil man, since no man believeth himself to be evil. I love you.'

Katharine closed her eyes and let her head fall back in her chair. The
dusk was falling slowly, and she shivered.

'You have no warrant to take me away?' she asked, expressionlessly.

He laughed again.

'Thus,' he said, 'devious men love women that be simple. And, for a
profound, devious and guileful politician you shall find none to match
his Highness.'

He looked at Katharine with scrutinising and malicious eyes. She never
moved.

'I would have you listen,' he said.

She had had no one to talk to all that day. There was no single
creature with whom she could discuss. She might have asked counsel of
old Rochford. But apart from the disorder of his mind he had another
trouble. He had a horse for sale, and he had given the refusal of it
to a man called Stey who lived in Warwickshire. In the meanwhile two
Frenchmen had made him a greater offer, and no answer came from
Warwickshire. He was in a fume. Cicely Elliott was watching him and
thinking of nothing else, Margot Poins was weeping all day, because
the magister had been bidden to go to Paris to turn into Latin the
letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt. There was no one around Katharine that
was not engrossed in his own affairs. In that beehive of a place she
had been utterly alone with horror in her soul. Thus she could hardly
piece together Throckmorton's meanings. She thought he had come to
gibe at her.

'Why should I listen?' she said.

'Because,' he answered sardonically, 'you have a great journey
indicated for you, and I would instruct you as to certain peaks that
you may climb.'

She had been using her rosary, and she moved it in her lap.

'Any poor hedge priest would be a better guide on such a journey,' she
answered listlessly.

'Why, God help us all,' he laughed,