een signed, said Mistress
Corbet, if Mary had owned to the crime of which she was accused.

"Ah! how they insulted her!" cried Mary Corbet indignantly. "She showed
me one day the room where her throne had stood. Now the cloth of state
had been torn down by Sir Amyas Paulet's men, and he himself dared to sit
with his hat on his head in the sovereign's presence! The insolence of
the hound! But the Queen showed me how she had hung a crucifix where her
royal arms used to hang. 'J'appelle,' she said to me, 'de la reine au roi
des rois.'"

Mistress Corbet went on to tell of the arrival of Walsingham's
brother-in-law, Mr. Beale, with the death-warrant on that February Sunday
evening.

"I saw his foxy face look sideways up at the windows as he got off his
horse in the courtyard; and I knew that our foes had triumphed. Then the
other bloodhounds began to arrive; my lord of Kent on the Monday and
Shrewsbury on the Tuesday. Then they came in to us after dinner; and they
told her Grace it was to be for next day. I was behind her chair and saw
her hand on the boss of the arm, and it did not stir nor clench; she said
it could not be. She could not believe it of Elizabeth.

"When she did at last believe it, there was no wild weeping or crying for
mercy; but she set her affairs in order, queenly, and yet sedately too.
She first thought of her soul, and desired that M. de Preau might come to
her and hear her confession; but they would not permit it. They offered
her Dr. Fletcher instead, 'a godly man,' as my lord of Kent called him.
'Je ne m'en doute pas,' she said, smiling. But it was hard not to have a
priest.

"Then she set her earthly affairs in order when she had examined her soul
and made confession to God without the Dean's assistance. We all supped
together when it was growing late; and I thought, Father Anthony--indeed
I did--of another Supper long ago. Then M. Gorion was sent for to arrange
some messages and gifts; and until two of the clock in the morning we
watched with her or served her as she wrote and gave orders. The court
outside was full of comings and goings. As I passed down the passage I
saw the torches of the visitors that were come to see the end; and once I
heard a hammering from the great hall. Then she went to her bed; and I
think few lay as quiet as she in the castle that night. I was with her
ladies when they waked her before dawn; and it was hard to see that sweet
face on the pillow open its eyes again