is King is. I tell you--and I
swear it----'

She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide
open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open.
The Queen was moving towards her.

She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the
air, but her head was erect.

'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!'

Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep.

V

The King sat on the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lords
of his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with his
yellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had proved
himself no lover of the Queen's. There was Gardiner of Winchester,
sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next him
was the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And so
round the horse-shoe table against the wall sat all the other lords and
commissioners that had been appointed to make inquiry. Sir Anthony
Browne was there, and Wriothesley with his great beard, and the Duke of
Suffolk with his hanging jaw. A silence had fallen upon them all, and
the witnesses were all done with.

On high on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one
side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on
high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for comfort
and counsel.

'Why, you shall save her for me?' he said.

Cranmer's face was haggard, and upon it too there were tears.

'It were the gladdest thing that ever I did,' he said, 'for I do believe
this Queen is not so guilty.'

'God of His mercy bless thee, Cranmer,' he said, and wearily he touched
his black bonnet at the sacred name. 'I have done all that I might when
I spoke with Mary Hall. It shall save me her life.'

Cranmer looked round upon the lords below them; they were all silent but
only the Duke of Norfolk who laughed to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor,
a burly man, was more pallid and haggard than any. All the others had
fear for themselves written upon their faces. But the citizen was not
used to these trials, of which the others had seen so many.

The Archbishop fell on his knees on the step before the King's throne.

'Gracious and dread Lord,' he said, and his low voice trembled like that
of a schoolboy, 'Saviour, Lord, and Fount of Justice of this realm!
Hitherto these trials have been of traitor-felons and