ey
have hidden the Sacred Blood of Hailes, that I may touch it and be
cured.'

The old knight frowned very slightly.

'I have told thee to wrap thy fist in lamb's-wool,' he said. 'A
hundred times I have told thee. It is very dangerous to meddle with
these old saints and phials that are done away with.'

Lady Rochford sighed gently and hung her head.

'My cousin Anne, that was a sinful Queen, God rest her soul ...' she
began.

Sir Nicholas listened to her no more.

'See you,' he whispered to Katharine. 'Peradventure it is best that
Cicely have gone. Being a madcap, her comings and goings are heeded by
no man, and it is true that she resorteth daily to the Bishop of
Winchester, to plague his priests.'

'I would not speak so, being a man,' Katharine said.

He smiled at her and patted her shoulder.

'Why, I have struck good blows in my time,' he said.

'And have learned worldly wisdom,' Katharine retorted.

'I would not risk my neck on grounds where I am but ill acquainted,'
he answered soberly. He was all will to please her. The King, he said,
was coming on the Wednesday, after the Bishop of Winchester's, to see
three new stallions walk in their manage-steps. 'I pray that you will
come with Cicely Elliott to watch from the little window in the
stables. These great creatures are a noble sight. I bred them myself
to it.' His mild brown eyes were bright with enthusiasm and
cordiality.

Suddenly there was a great silence in the room, and the Lady Mary
raised her head. The burly figure of Throckmorton, the spy, was in the
doorway. Katharine shuddered at the sight of him, for, in her
Lincolnshire house, where he was accounted more hateful than Judas who
betrayed the Lord, she had seen him beat the nuns when the convents
had been turned out of doors, and he had brought to death his own
brother, who had had a small estate near her father's house. The smile
upon his face made her feel sick. He stroked his long, golden-brown
beard, glanced swiftly round the room, and advanced to the mistress's
chair, swinging his great shoulders. He made a leg and pulled off his
cap, and at that there was a rustle of astonishment, for it had been
held treasonable to cap the Lady Mary. Her eyes regarded him fixedly,
with a granite cold and hardness, and he seemed to have at once a grin
of power and a shrinking motion of currying favour. He said that Privy
Seal begged her leave that her maid Katharine Howard might go to him
soon after