ey heed not me."

He answered that he would go to them as soon as he thought that his
patient required no further professional assistance. Margery seemed
better shortly, and Master Simon, for such was the doctor's name,
repaired at once to the council charged with the examination of
prisoners accused of heresy, and told them that their State prisoner,
the Lady Marnell, was very ill in her dungeon, and would not be able to
appear before them for at least some weeks to come. Arundel, who
presided, only laughed. The doctor insisted.

"Why," said be, "the poor lady is sickening for a fever; let her alone:
how can a woman light-headed answer questions upon doctrine and heresy?"

The council, governed by Arundel, still seemed unwilling to grant the
prayer; when, to the surprise of every one present, Abbot Bilson, the
principal witness for the Crown, rose and supported the petition. The
puzzled council accordingly granted it. Arundel was very much under
Bilson's influence, and Bilson had a private reason for his conduct,
which will presently appear.

So the examination was adjourned until February, and Margery, released
for the moment from the struggle with her enemies, was left to combat
the fever which had seized her. Lord Marnell and Master Simon begged
for an order of the council to remove poor Margery home, the latter
asserting that she would never recover in the Tower. The council
refused this application. They then requested that one of her
waiting-women should be allowed to attend her, and that bedding and
linen, with such other necessaries as Master Simon might deem fit, might
be supplied to the prisoner from her own house. The council, after a
private consultation among its members, thought fit to grant this
reasonable prayer.

Alice Jordan was made very happy by an order from Lord Marnell to attend
her sick mistress. Everything that Marnell Place could furnish, which
Master Simon did not absolutely forbid,--and Master Simon was easy of
persuasion--was lavished on the whitewashed cell in the Tower. Alice,
however, was carefully searched every time she passed in and out of the
Tower, to see that she supplied no books nor writing-materials to the
prisoner, nor took any letters from her. Poor Margery! the care was
needless, for she was just then as incapable of writing as if she had
never been taught.

Margery's illness lasted even longer than Master Simon had anticipated.
On a dark, cold winter night