el to me. This is to risk your neck to act thus before
Privy Seal.'

The hard words were aimed straight at the face of Cromwell.

'Your ladyship knows well I would fain have it otherwise,' he answered
softly.

'I do not ask it,' she answered.

He maintained a gentle smile of deprecation, beckoning a little with
his head and with his eyes, begging her for private conversation. She
lifted Katharine roughly to her feet and followed him to a distant
window. She seemed as if she were an automaton without will or
independent motions of her own, so small were her steps and her feet
so hidden beneath her stiff black skirts. He began talking to her in a
voice of which only the persuasive higher notes came into the room.

At that time she was still proclaimed bastard, and her name was erased
from the list of those it was lawful to pray for in the churches. At
times she endured great hardships, even to going short of food, for
she suffered from a wasting complaint that made her a great eater. But
starvation could not make her submit to the King, her father, or to
the Lord Cromwell who was ruler in the land. Sometimes they gave her a
great train, strove to make her dress herself richly, and dragged her
to such festivals as this of the marriage with Anne of Cleves. This
was done when the Lord Privy Seal dangled her before the eyes of the
Emperor of France as a match; then it was necessary to increase the
appearance of her worth in England. But sometimes the King, out of a
warm and generous feeling of satisfaction with his young son, was
moved to behave bountifully to his daughter, and, seeking to dazzle
her with his munificence, gave her golden crosses and learned books
annotated with his own hand, richly jewelled and with embroidered
covers. Or when the Emperor, her cousin, interceded that she should be
treated more kindly, she was threatened with the block. Of late
Cromwell had set himself to gain her heart with his intrigue that he
could make so smooth and with his air that could be so gentle--that
the King found so lovable. But nothing moved her to set her hand to a
deed countenancing her dead mother's disgrace; to smile upon her
father and his minister, who had devised the means for casting down
her mother; or to consent to relinquish her right to the throne. So
that at times, when the cloud of the Church abroad, and of the
rebellions all over the extremities of the kingdoms, threatened very
greatly, the King was driven t