what cometh after. For, for sure, Privy Seal holdeth, then shall be
the time to bring witnesses against thee to the hearing of the King.
And Privy Seal hath witnesses.'

'He would have witnesses,' Katharine answered.

'There be those that will swear----'

'Aye,' she caught him up, speaking very calmly. 'There be those that
will swear they ha' seen me with a dozen men. With my cousin, with
Nick Ardham, with one and another of the hinds. Why, he will bring a
hind to swear I ha' loved him. And he will bring a bastard child or
twain----' She paused, and he paused too.

At last he said: 'Anan?'

'Ye might do it against Godiva of Coventry, against the blessed
Katharine or against Caesar's helpmeet in those days,' Katharine said.
'Margot here can match all thy witnesses from the city of London--men
that never were in Lincolnshire.'

Margot's face flushed with a tide of exasperation, and, sitting
motionless, she uttered deeply:

'My uncle the printer hath a man will swear he saw ye walk with a
fiend having horns and a tail.' And indeed these things were believed
among the Lutherans that flocked still to Margot's uncle's printing
room. 'My uncle hath printed this,' she muttered, and fumbled hotly in
her bosom. She drew out a sheet with coarse black letters upon it and
cast it across the floor with a flushed disdain at Throckmorton's
feet. It bore the heading: '_Newes from Lincoln_,' Throckmorton kicked
with his toe the white scroll and scrutinised Katharine's face
dispassionately with his foxy eyes that jumped between his lids like
little beetles of blue. He thrust his cap back upon his head and
laughed.

'Before God!' he said; 'ye are the joyfullest play that ever I heard.
And how will Madam Howard act when the King heareth these things?'

Katharine opened her lips with surprise.

'For a subtile man ye are strangely blinded,' she said; 'there is one
plain way.'

'To deny it and call the saints to witness!' he laughed.

'Even that,' she answered. 'I pray the saints to give me the place and
time.'

'Ha' ye seen the King in a jealous rage?' he asked.

'Subtile man,' she answered, 'the King knows his world.'

'Aye,' he answered, 'knoweth that women be never chaste.'

Katharine bent to pick up her sewing.

'Sir,' she said, 'if the King will not have faith in me I will wed no
King.'

His jaw fell. 'Ye have so much madness?' he asked.

She stretched towards him the hand that held her sewing now.

'I swear to