stop it all, your Grace, with one little word; and make that mother's
heart bless your name and pray for you night and morning till she
dies;--and let that gallant son go free, and save his racked body before
it be torn asunder;--and you can make this honest lad's heart happy again
with the thought that he has saved his friend instead of slaying him.
Look you, madam, he has come confessing his fault; saying bravely to your
Grace that he did try to do his friend a service in spite of the laws,
for that he held love to be the highest law. Ah! how many happy souls you
can make with a word; because you are a Queen.--What is it to be a
Queen!--to be able to do all that!--Oh! madam, be pitiful then, and show
mercy as one day you hope to find it."

Mary spoke with an intense feeling; her voice was one long straining sob
of appeal; and as she ended her tears were beginning to rain down on the
hand she held between her own; she lifted it to her streaming face and
kissed it again and again; and then dropped her forehead upon it, and so
rested in dead silence.

Elizabeth swallowed in her throat once or twice; and then spoke, and her
voice was a little choked.

"Well, well, you silly girl.--You plead too well."

Anthony irresistibly threw his hands out as he knelt.

"Oh! God bless your Grace!" he said; and then gave a sob or two himself.

"There, there, you are a pair of children," she said; for Mary was
kissing her hand again and again. "And you are a pretty pair, too," she
added. "Now, now, that is enough, stand up."

Anthony rose to his feet again and stood there; and Mary went round again
behind the chair.

"Now, now, you have put me in a sore strait," said Elizabeth; "between
you I scarcely know how to keep my word. They call me fickle enough
already. But Frank Walsingham shall do it for me. He is certainly at the
back of it all, and he shall manage it. It shall be done at once. Call a
page, Minnie."

Mary Corbet went to the back of the room into the shadow, opened a door
that Anthony had not noticed, and beckoned sharply; in a moment or two a
page was bowing before Elizabeth.

"Is Sir Francis Walsingham in the palace?" she asked,--"then bring him
here," she ended, as the boy bowed again.

"And you too," she went on, "shall hear that I keep my word,"--she
pointed towards the door whence the page had come.--"Stand there," she
said, "and leave the door ajar."

Mary gave Anthony her hand and a radiant smile as they