"I have nothing to say, Madam," replied the Duchess, "upon the subject
that is so uneasy to you. That person (Lady Masham) is not, that I know
of, at all concerned in the account that I would give you."

"You can put it into writing," reiterated the Queen, who, desirous at
any cost of avoiding a quarrel, which, from the temper of her quondam
favourite, seemed inevitable, repeated the same words several times,
purposely interrupting the Duchess, who was already beginning to defend
herself.

In spite of the Queen's injunctions, Sarah continued to affirm that she
was no more capable of making such disrespectful mention of her Majesty
than she was of killing her own children, to which Anne coolly remarked,
"There are, doubtless, many lies told on 'both sides.'"

During a whole hour, nevertheless, the Duchess strove to establish her
innocence by protestations or prayers. But the Queen's heart was
irrevocably closed. Desirous of terminating an interview that grew more
and more embarrassing, and remembering the scene in St. Paul's, when her
Mistress of the Robes had told her to be silent and make no answer, and
that lately, in writing to her, the Duchess had said that she required
no answer, or that she would not trouble the Queen to give her one, Anne
said, "You did not require an answer from me, and I will give you none."
This frigid resistance exasperated the Duchess, who, astounded to find
herself caught in her own trap, and taken at her word, declared, of
course, that the phrase was not intended to imply what it did; but the
Queen, she says, repeated it again and again, "without ever receding."

The Duchess protesting that her only design was to clear herself, the
Queen repeated over and over again, "You desired no answer, and shall
have none."

The angry but still politic Sarah next passed from prayers to
reproaches. "I will leave the room," said Anne, with dignity.

"I then begged to know if her Majesty would tell me some other time."

"You desired no answer, and you shall have none."

On hearing these words, which left no further hope, the Duchess burst
into tears; then, as though ashamed of her weakness, she withdrew into
the gallery to suppress her passionate fit of weeping. Returning after
the lapse of a few minutes, she tried a last and decisive application:

"I have been thinking," said the Duchess, "whilst I sat there, that if
your Majesty came to the Castle at Windsor, where I heard you were soon
expe