now all your tale of a
letter. Come now, pretty one. Up, pretty soul.' He bent over
benevolently and stroked her hand.

'These dark passages are frightening to maids. Up now, pretty. I was
thinking of thee.

'Who the devil shall harm thee?' he muttered again. 'This is mine own
house. Come, pray with me. Prayer is a very soothing thing. I was
bound to pray. I pray ever at nightfall. Up now. Come--pray, pray,
pray!'

His heavy benevolence for a moment shed a calmness upon the place. She
rose, and pressing back the hair from her forehead, saw the long,
still corridor, the guard beneath the torch, the doors of the chapel.

She said to herself pitifully: 'What comes next?' She was too wearied
to move again.

Suddenly the King said:

'Child, you did well to come to me, when you came in the stables.'

She leaned against the tapestry upon the wall to listen to him.

'It is true,' he admitted, 'that you have men that hate you and your
house. The Bishop of Winchester did show me a letter you wrote. I do
pardon it in you. It was well written.'

'Ah,' she uttered wearily, 'so you say now. But you shall change your
mind ere morning.'

'Body of God, no,' he answered. 'My mind is made up concerning you.
Let us call a truce to these things. It is my hour for prayer. Let us
go to pray.'

Knowing how this King's mind would change from hour to hour, she had
little hope in his words. Nevertheless slowly it came into her mind
that if she were ever to act, now that he was in the mood was the very
hour. But she knew nothing of the coil in which she now was. Yet
without the King she could do nothing; she was in the hands of other
men: of Throckmorton, of Privy Seal, of God knew whom.

'Sir,' she said, 'at the end of this passage stood a man.'

The King looked past her into the gloom.

'He stands there still,' he said. 'He is tying his arm with a
kerchief. He looks like one Throckmorton.'

'Then, if he have not run,' she said. 'Call him here. He has had my
knife in his arm. He holds a letter of mine.'

His neck stiffened suddenly.

'You have been writing amorous epistles?' he muttered.

'God knows there was naught of love,' she answered. 'Do you bid him
unpouch it.' She closed her eyes; she was done with this matter.

Henry called:

'Ho, you, approach!' and as through the shadows Throckmorton's shoes
clattered on the boards he held out a thickly gloved hand.
Throckmorton made no motion to put anything into it, and the