own back, so that her hair--far whiter than what was usually
displayed--was hanging dishevelled, her ruff torn open, as if it choked
back the swelling passion in her throat.

"Never, never content with persecuting me, they must insult me! Is it
not enough that I am stripped of my crown, deprived of my friends; that
I cannot take a step beyond this chamber, queen as I am, without my
warder? Must they attaint me as a woman? Oh, why, why did the doom
spare me that took my little brothers? Why did I live to be the most
wretched, not of sovereigns alone, but of women?"

"Madam," entreated Marie de Courcelles, "dearest madam, take courage.
All these horrible charges refute themselves."

"Ah, Marie! you have said so ten thousand times, and what charge has
ever been dropped?"

"This one is dropped!" exclaimed Susan, coming forward. "Yes, your
Grace, indeed it is! The Commissioner himself told my husband that no
one believed it for a moment."

"Then why should these men have been sent but to sting and gall me, and
make me feel that I am in their power?" cried the Queen.

"They came," said the Secretary Curll, "because thus alone could the
Countess be silenced."

"The Countess!" exclaimed Mary. "So my cousin hath listened to her
tongue!"

"Backed by her daughter's," added Jean Kennedy.

"It were well that she knew what those two dames can say of her Majesty
herself, when it serves them," added Marie de Courcelles.

"That shall she!" exclaimed Mary. "She shall have it from mine own
hand! Ha! ha! Elizabeth shall know the choice tales wherewith Mary
Talbot hath regaled us, and then shall she judge how far anything that
comes from my young lady is worth heeding for a moment. Remember you
all the tales of the nips and the pinches? Ay, and of all the
endearments to Leicester and to Hatton? She shall have it all, and try
how she likes the dish of scandal of Mary Talbot's cookery, sauced by
Bess of Hardwicke. Here, nurse, come and set this head-gear of mine in
order, and do you, my good Curll, have pen, ink, and paper in readiness
for me."

The Queen did little but write that morning. The next day, on coming
out from morning prayers, which the Protestants of her suite attended,
with the rest of the Shrewsbury household, Barbara Mowbray contrived to
draw Mrs. Talbot apart as they went towards the lodge.

"Madam," she said, "they all talk of your power to persuade. Now is
the time you could do what would be n