al, and still more astonished that you should think I
would aid you in that. I tell you plainly that I am glad that the fellow
is caught, for that I think there will be presently one less fire-brand
in England. I know it is easy to cry out against persecution and
injustice; that is ever the shallow cry of the mob; but this is not a
religious persecution, as you yourself very well know. It is because the
Roman Church interferes with the peace of the realm and the Queen's
authority that its ordinances are forbidden; we do not seek to touch a
man's private opinions. However, you know all that as well as I."

Anthony was raging now with anger.

"I am not so sure, my lord, as I was," he said. "I had hoped from your
lordship at any rate to find sympathy for the base trick whereby my
friend was snared; and I find it now hard to trust the judgment of any
who do not feel as I do about it."

"That is insolence, Mr. Norris," said Aylmer, stopping in his walk and
turning upon him his cold half-shut eyes, "and I will not suffer it."

"Then, my lord, I had better begone to her Grace at once."

"To her Grace!" exclaimed the Bishop.

"_Appello Caesarem_," said Anthony, and was gone again.

* * * *

As Anthony came into the courtyard of Greenwich Palace an hour or two
later he found it humming with movement and noise. Cooks were going to
and fro with dishes, as dinner was only just ending; servants in the
royal livery were dashing across with messages; a few great hounds for
the afternoon's baiting were in a group near one of the gateways,
snuffing the smell of cookery, and howling hungrily now and again.

Anthony stopped one of the men, and sent him with a message to Mistress
Corbet; and the servant presently returned, saying that the Court was
just rising from dinner, and Mistress Corbet would see him in a parlour
directly, if the gentleman would kindly follow him. A groom took his
horse off to the stable, and Anthony himself followed the servant to a
little oak-parlour looking on to a lawn with a yew hedge and a dial. He
felt as one moving in a dream, bewildered by the rush of interviews, and
oppressed by the awful burden that he bore at his heart. Nothing any
longer seemed strange; and he scarcely gave a thought to what it meant
when he heard the sound of trumpets in the court, as the Queen left the
Hall. In five minutes more Mistress Corbet burst into the room; and her
anxious