ward, seizing
every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary. Goodwife Allen is
still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your man and maid have not
yet come, but I shall be overhead if you need aught. Mistress Percy must
want rest after her ride."

He was gone, leaving us two alone together. She stood opposite me,
beside the window, from which she had not moved since entering the room.
The color was still in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, and she still
held the roses with which Sparrow had heaped her arms. I was moving to
the table.

"Wait!" she said, and I turned toward her again.

"Have you no questions to ask?" she demanded.

I shook my head. "None, madam."

"I was the King's ward!" she cried.

I bowed, but spoke no word, though she waited for me.

"If you will listen," she said at last, proudly, and yet with a pleading
sweetness,--"if you will listen, I will tell you how it was that I--that
I came to wrong you so."

"I am listening, madam," I replied.

She stood against the light, the roses pressed to her bosom, her dark
eyes upon me, her head held high. "My mother died when I was born; my
father, years ago. I was the King's ward. While the Queen lived she kept
me with her,--she loved me, I think; and the King too was kind,--would
have me sing to him, and would talk to me about witchcraft and the
Scriptures, and how rebellion to a king is rebellion to God. When I was
sixteen, and he tendered me marriage with a Scotch lord, I, who loved
the gentleman not, never having seen him, prayed the King to take the
value of my marriage and leave me my freedom. He was so good to me then
that the Scotch lord was wed elsewhere, and I danced at the wedding with
a mind at ease. Time passed, and the King was still my very good lord.
Then, one black day, my Lord Carnal came to court, and the King looked
at him oftener than at his Grace of Buckingham. A few months, and my
lord's wish was the King's will. To do this new favorite pleasure he
forgot his ancient kindness of heart; yea, and he made the law of no
account. I was his kinswoman, and under my full age; he would give my
hand to whom he chose. He chose to give it to my Lord Carnal."

She broke off, and turned her face from me toward the slant sunshine
without the window. Thus far she had spoken quietly, with a certain
proud patience of voice and bearing; but as she stood there in a silence
which I did not break, the memory of her wrongs brought the crim