e that ye so act as ye shall see that disc again!'

Viridus spoke no word, but having waited a minute to hear if Privy
Seal had more to enjoin, noiselessly and with his hands folded before
him as they had been when he came, moved away over the shining floor.
He went to tell the old, shivering Chancellor of the Augmentations
that he must absent himself upon their common master's errands. 'I
misdoubt some heads will fall to-night,' he added as he went; 'our
lord's nose for treasons is sharpened again.' And that creature of
Privy Seal's shook beneath the furs that he wore, though it was
already April; for the Chancellor had his private reasons to dread
Privy Seal's outbursts of suspicion.

In the gallery, Privy Seal still spoke earnestly with Lascelles.

'I give this part of honour and privilege to thee,' he said; 'for
though I was well prepared in all things, I trow I may trust thee
better than another person.'

Lascelles was to watch for Culpepper, to hasten to Viridus, to attend
upon the pair of them as the pilot-fish attendeth upon the ghostly and
silent shark, not to leave them till the work was accomplished, or,
upon the least sign of treason in Viridus or another, to come
hastening as never man hastened, to Privy Seal.

'For,' Cromwell ended, 'ye have felt like me how, if this realm is to
be saved, saved it shall be by this thing alone.'

Lascelles, who had had no opening to speak, opened now his lips. Great
ferreter as he was, he had discovered former servants of the Duchess
of Norfolk, that were ready, for consideration of threats, to swear
that they had seen the Lady Katharine when a child in her
grandmother's house to be over familiar with one Francis Dearham. He
himself had these witnesses earmarked and attainable, and he was upon
the point of offering them to Privy Seal. But he recollected that
Privy Seal had witnesses enow of his own. To-morrow was also a day;
and the King, if he would not now listen to tales against Kat Howard,
might be brought to give ear to those and others added in a year's
time, or when he began to tire of his woman as all men tire of women.
Therefore he once more closed his lips. And Cromwell spoke as if his
thoughts of a truth jumped together with Lascelles'.

'Sir,' he said, 'I would willingly bribe you from the service of his
Grace of Canterbury to come into mine. But it may be that I shall not
long outlive these days. Therefore I enjoin upon you these things:
Serve well your