halt die
and lie in an unknown grave as thou hadst never been born.'

She went, her knees trembling half with fear and half with rage, for
it was impossible to imagine anything more threatening or more
arrogant than his soft, cruel voice, that seemed to sound for long
after in her ears, saying, 'I have you at my mercy; see you do as I
have bidden you.'

Watching the door that closed upon her, Viridus said, with a negligent
amusement:

'That fool Udal hath set it all about that your lordship designed her
for the recreation of his Highness.'

'Why,' Cromwell answered, with his motionless smile of contempt for
his fellow men, 'it is well to offer bribes to fools and threats to
knaves.'

The Chancellor bleated, with amazed adulation, 'Marvel that your
lordship should give so much care to such a worthless rag!'

'An I had never put my heart into trifles, I had never stood here,'
Cromwell snarled at him. 'Would that my knaves would ever come to
learn that!' He spoke again to Viridus: 'See that this wench come
never near his Highness. I like not her complexion.'

'Well, we may clap her up at any moment,' his man answered.

VII

The King came to the revels at the Bishop of Winchester's, for these
too were given in honour of the Queen, and he had altered in his mind
to let the Emperor and Francis know that he was inclined to weaken in
his new alliances. Besides, there was the newest suitor for the hand
of the Lady Mary, the young Duke Philip of Wittelsbach, who must be
shown how great were the resources of the land. Young, gay, dark, a
famous warrior and a good Catholic, he sat behind the Queen and
speaking German of a sort he made her smile at times. The play was the
_Menechmi_ of Plautus, and Duke Philip interpreted it to her. She
seemed at times so nearly human that the King, glancing back over his
shoulder to note whether she disgraced him, could settle down into his
chair and rest both his back and his misgivings. Seeing the frown
leave his brow all the courtiers grew glad behind him; Cromwell talked
with animation to Baumbach, the ambassador from the Schmalkaldner
league, since he had not seen the King so gay for many days, and
Gardiner in his bishop's robes smiled with a black pleasure because
his feast was so much more prosperous than Privy Seal's had been.
There was no one there of the Lady Mary's household, because it was
not seemly that she should be where her suitor was before he had been
presented to