t in her face.

'Shame shall out in the communion of the godly, be it whose kin it
will.'

'Why, I wish the communion of the godly joy in its hot tales,' she
answered. 'As for me, speak you with the magister when he comes from
France. As for my mistress, three times she hath seen the King since
Winchester's feast was three months agone. She in no wise affected his
Highness till she had heard his Highness confute the errors of Dr
Barnes in the small closet. When she came away therefrom she said that
his Highness was like a god for his knowledge of God's law. If you
want better tales than that go to a wench from the stairs to make them
for you.'

'Aye,' said their neighbour, 'three times hath she been with the King.
And the price of the first time was the warrant that took thee to pay
Udal for his connivance. And the price of the second was that the
King's Highness should confute our sacred Barnes in the conclave. And
the price of the third was that the Lord Cromwell should dine with the
Bishop of Winchester and righteousness sit with its head in ashes.'

'Why, have it as thou wilt, Neighbour Ned,' she answered. 'In my life
of twenty years thou hast brought me twenty sugar cates. God forbid
that I should stay thy willing lips over a sweet morsel.'

In the gloomy and spiritless silence that fell upon them all--since no
man there much believed the things that were alleged, but all very
thoroughly believed that evil days were stored up against them--the
bursting open of the door made so great a sound that the speechless
German tilted backward with his chair and lay on the ground, before
any of them knew what was the cause. The black figure of a boy shut
out the grey light and the torrents of rain. His head was bare, his
frieze clothes dripped and sagged upon his skin: he waved his clenched
fist half at the sky and half at Margot's face and screamed:

'I ha' carried letters for thee, 'twixt thy mistress and the King! I
ha' carried letters. I ... ha' ... been gaoled for it.'

'O fool,' Margot's deep voice uttered, unmoved, 'the letters went not
between those two. And thou art free; come in from the rain.'

He staggered across the prostrate German.

'I ha' lost my advancement,' he sobbed. 'Where shall I go? Twenty
hours I have hidden in the reeds by the riverside. I shall be taken
again.'

'There is no hot pursuit for thee then,' Margot said, 'for in all the
twenty hours no man hath sought thee here.' She had the he