e devil with me. There in the
King's presence I must stand for an hour or more while all talked and
never let a word slip between my lips, and at last hear myself called by
his Grace a woman of temper and you a fool for wishing to marry me. Oh,
if ever we do marry, I'll prove his words."

"Then perhaps, Emlyn, we who have got on a long while apart, had best
stay so," answered Thomas calmly. "Yet, why you should fret because you
must keep your tongue in its case for an hour, or because I asked leave
to marry you in all honour, I do not know. I have worked my best for
you and your mistress at some hazard, and things have not gone so ill,
seeing that now we are quit of blame and in a fair way to peace and
comfort. If you are not content, why then, the King was right, and I'm
a fool, and so good-bye, I'll trouble you no more in fair weather or
in foul. I have leave to marry, and there are other women in the world
should I need one."

"Tread on their tails and even worms will turn," soliloquized Jacob,
while Emlyn burst into tears.

Cicely ran to console her, and Bolle made as though he would leave the
room.

Just then there came a great knocking on the street door, and the sound
of a voice crying--

"In the King's name! In the King's name, open!"

"That's Commissioner Legh," said Thomas. "I learned the cry from him,
and it is a good one at a pinch, as some of you may remember."

Emlyn dried her tears with her sleeve; Cicely sat down and Jacob
shovelled the parchments into his big pockets. Then in burst the
Commissioner, to whom some one had opened.

"What's this I hear?" he cried, addressing Cicely, his face as red as a
turkey cock's. "That you have been working behind my back; that you have
told falsehoods of me to his Grace, who called me knave and thief; that
I am commanded to pay my fees into the Treasury? Oh, ungrateful wench,
would to God that I had let you burn ere you disgraced me thus."

"If you bring so much heat into my poor house, learned Doctor, surely
all of us will soon burn," said Jacob suavely. "The Lady Harflete said
nothing that his Highness did not force her to say, as I know who was
present, and among so many pickings cannot you spare a single dole?
Come, come, drink a cup of wine and be calm."

But Dr. Legh, who had already drunk several cups of wine, would not be
calm. He reviled first one of them and then the other, but especially
Emlyn, whom he conceived to be the cause of all his woes,