nd not so easily taken.'

The Queen stood still whilst all her hopes fell down.

'They have taken Lady Cicely that was ever with me,' she said.

'It was the Duke of Norfolk that pressed me most,' Mary Lascelles cried
out.

'Aye, he would,' the Lady Mary answered.

The Queen tottered upon her feet.

'Ask her more,' she said. 'I will not speak with her.'

'The King in his council ...' the girl began.

'Is the King in his council upon these matters?' the Lady Mary asked.

'Aye, he sitteth there,' Mary Hall said. 'And he hath heard evidence of
Mary Trelyon the Queen's maid, how that the Queen's Highness did bid her
begone on the night that Sir T. Culpepper came to her room, before he
came. And how that the Queen was very insistent that she should go, upon
the score of fatigue and the lateness of the hour. And she hath deponed
that on other nights, too, this has happened, that the Queen's Highness,
when she hath come late to bed, hath equally done the same thing. And
other her maids have deponed how the Queen hath sent them from her
presence and relieved them of tasks----'

'Well, well,' the Lady Mary said, 'often I have urged the Queen that she
should be less gracious. Better it had been if she had beat ye all as I
have done; then had ye feared to betray her.'

'Aye,' Mary Hall said, 'it is a true thing that your Grace saith there.'

'Call me not your Grace,' the Lady Mary said. 'I will be no Grace in
this court of wolves and hogs.'

That was the sole thing that she said to show she was of the Queen's
party. But ever she questioned the kneeling woman to know what evidence
had been given, and of the attitude of the lords.

The young Poins had sworn roundly that the Queen had bidden him to
summon no guards when her cousin had broken in upon her. Only Udal had
said that he knew nothing of how Katharine had agreed with her cousin
whilst they were in Lincolnshire. It had been after his time there that
Culpepper came. It had been after his time, too, and whilst he lay in
chains at Pontefract that Culpepper had come to her door. He stuck to
that tale, though the Duke of Norfolk had beat and threatened him never
so.

'Why, what wolves Howards be,' the Lady Mary said, 'for it is only
wolves, of all beasts, that will prey upon the sick of their kind.'

The Queen stood there, swaying back as if she were very sick, her eyes
fast closed, and the lids over them very blue.

It was only when the Lady Mary drew from the