the day before, and the admiring look she cast on De la
Foret but now. He had seen more in it than mere approval of courage and
the self-reliant bearing of a refugee of her own religion.

These were days when the soldier of fortune mounted to high places. He
needed but to carry the banner of bravery, and a busy sword, and his way
to power was not hindered by poor estate. To be gently born was the one
thing needful, and Michel de la Foret was gently born; and he had still
his sword, though he chose not to use it in Elizabeth's service. My Lord
knew it might be easier for a stranger like De la Foret, who came with
no encumbrance, to mount to place in the struggles of the Court,
than for an Englishman, whose increasing and ever-bolder enemies were
undermining on every hand, to hold his own.

He began to think upon ways and means to meet this sudden preference of
the Queen, made sharply manifest as he waited in the ante-chamber, by a
summons to the refugee to enter the Queen's apartments. When the refugee
came forth again he wore a sword the Queen had sent him, and a packet
of Latimer's sermons were under his arm. Leicester was unaware that
Elizabeth herself did not see De la Foret when he was thus hastily
called; but that her lady-in-waiting, the Duke's Daughter, who figured
so largely in the pictures Lempriere drew of his experiences at
Greenwich Palace, brought forth the sermons and the sword, with this
message from the Queen:

"The Queen says that it is but fair to the sword to be by Michel de
la Foret's side when the sermons are in his hand, that his choice have
every seeming of fairness. For her Majesty says it is still his choice
between the Sword and the Book till Trinity Day."

Leicester, however, only saw the sword at the side of the refugee and
the gold-bound book under his arm as he came forth, and in a rage he
left the palace and gloomily walked under the trees, denying himself to
every one.

To seize De la Foret, and send him to the Medici, and then rely on
Elizabeth's favour for his pardon, as he had done in the past? That
might do, but the risk to England was too great. It would be like the
Queen, if her temper was up, to demand from the Medici the return of De
la Foret, and war might ensue. Two women, with two nations behind them,
were not to be played lightly against each other, trusting to their
common sense and humour.

As he walked among the trees, brooding with averted eyes, he was
suddenly fac