d to you.
And so I must die. And now I see that you are not such a man as I would
live with willingly to preserve my life.

'I speak not to reprove you what I have spoken, but to make you see that
as I am so I am. You are as God made you, setting you for His own
purposes a weak man in very evil and turbulent times. As a man is born
so a man lives; as is his strength so the strain breaks him or he
resists the strain. If I have wounded you with these my words, I do ask
your pardon. Much of this long speech I have thought upon when I was
despondent this long time past. But much of it has come to my lips
whilst I spake, and, maybe, it is harsh and rash in the wording. That I
would not have, but I may not help myself. I would have you wounded by
the things as they are, and by what of conscience you have, in your
passions and your prides. And this, I will add, that I die a Queen, but
I would rather have died the wife of my cousin Culpepper or of any other
simple lout that loved me as he did, without regard, without thought,
and without falter. He sold farms to buy me bread. You would not imperil
a little alliance with a little King o' Scots to save my life. And this
I tell you, that I will spend the last hours of the days that I have to
live in considering of this simple man and of his love, and in praying
for his soul, for I hear you have slain him! And for the rest, I commend
you to your friends!'

The King had staggered back against the long table; his jaw fell open;
his head leaned down upon his chest. In all that long speech--the
longest she had ever made save when she was shown for Queen--she had not
once raised or lowered her voice, nor once dropped her eyes. But she had
remembered the lessons of speaking that had been given her by her master
Udal, in the aforetime, away in Lincolnshire, where there was an orchard
with green boughs, and below it a pig-pound where the hogs grunted.

She went slowly down over the great stone flags of the great hall. It
was very gloomy now, and her figure in black velvet was like a small
shadow, dark and liquid, amongst shadows that fell softly and like
draperies from the roof. Up there it was all dark already, for the
light came downwards from the windows. She went slowly, walking as she
had been schooled to walk.

'God!' Henry cried out; 'you have not played false with Culpepper?' His
voice echoed all round the hall.

The Queen's white face and her folded hands showed as she turned