finger.

Suddenly they were in a tall room, long, and dim because it faced the
north. It seemed an empty cavern, but there were in it many books upon
a long table and at the far end, so that they looked quite small, two
figures stood before a reading-pulpit. The voice of the serving man
who had thrown open the door made the words 'The Lord Privy Seal of
England' echo mournfully along the gilded and dim rafters of the
ceiling.

Cromwell hastened over the smooth, cold floor. The woman's figure in
black, the long tail of her hood falling almost to her feet like a
widow's veil, turned from the pulpit; a man remained bent down at his
reading.

'_Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum_,' Cromwell's voice uttered. The lady
stood, rigid and straight, her hands clasped before her. Her face,
pale so that not even a touch of red showed above the cheekbones and
hardly any in the tightly-pursed lips, was as if framed in her black
hood that fastened beneath the chin. The high, narrow forehead had the
hair tightly drawn back so that none was visible, and the coif that
showed beneath the hood was white, like a nun's; the temples were
hollowed so that she looked careworn inexpressibly, and her lips had
hard lines around them. Above her head all sounds in that dim room
seemed to whisper for a long time among the rafters as if here dwelt
something mysterious, sepulchral, a great grief or a great passion.

'I announce to you a master-joy,' Cromwell was saying. 'I bring your
La'ship a damsel of great erudition and knowledge of good letters.'

His voice was playful and full; his back was bent supply. His face lit
up with a debonnaire and pleasant smile. The lady's eyes turned upon
the girl, forbidding and suspicious; she remained motionless, even her
lips did not move. Cromwell said that this was a Katharine of the
Howards, and one fit to aid her Ladyship and Magister Udal with their
erudite commentary of Plautus his works.

The man at the reading desk looked round and then back at his book.
His pen scratched upon the margin of a great volume. Katharine Howard
was upon her knees grasping at the lady's hand to kiss it. But it was
snatched roughly away.

'This is a folly,' the voice came harshly from the pursed lips. 'Get
up, wench.' Katharine remained kneeling. For this was the Lady Mary of
England--a martyr for whom she had prayed nightly since she could
pray.

'Get up, fool,' the voice said above her head. 'It is proclaimed
treason to kne