ring the Lady Mary to love
you. But that might not be. Now, your Highness being minded to give to
these your happy realms a lasting peace, was intent that the Lady Mary
should write a letter, very urgently, to your Highness' foes urging
them to make a truce with this realm, so that your Highness might cast
out certain evil men and then better purge this realm of certain false
doctrines.'

Amazement, that was almost a horror, made Katharine open wide the two
hands that hung at her side.

'You!' she cried to the King. '_You_ would have that letter written?'

He looked at her with a heavy astonishment.

'Wherefore not?' he asked.

'My God! my God!' she said. 'And I have suffered!'

Her first feeling of horror at this endless plot hardly gave way to
relief. She had been used as a tool; she had done the work. But she
had been betrayed.

'Aye, would I have the letter written,' the King said. 'What could
better serve my turn? Would I not have mine enemies stay their arming
against me?'

'Then I have written your letter,' she said bitterly. 'That is why I
should be gaoled.'

The King's look of heavy astonishment did not leave him.

'Why, sweetheart, shalt be made a countess,' he said. 'Y' have done
more in this than I or any man could do with my daughter.'

'Wherefore, then, should this man have gaoled me?' Katharine asked.

The King turned his heavy gaze upon Throckmorton. The big man's eyes
had a sunny and devious smile.

'Sir,' he said, 'this is a subtle conceit of mine, since I am a subtle
man. If I am set a task I do it ever in mine own way. Here there was a
task....

'Pray you let me sit upon the floor!' he craved. 'My legs begin to
fail.'

The King made a small motion with his hand, and the great man, letting
himself down by one hand against the arras, leaned back his head and
stretched his long legs half across the corridor.

'In ten minutes Privy Seal shall be here with the letter,' he said.
'My head swims, but I will be brief.'

He closed his eyes and passed his hand across his forehead.

'I do a task ever in mine own way,' he began again. 'Here am I. Here
is Privy Seal. Your Highness is minded to know what passes in the mind
of Privy Seal. Well: I am Privy Seal's servant. Now, if I am to come
at the mind of Privy Seal, I must serve him well. In this thing I
might seem to serve him main well. Listen....'

He cleared his throat and then spoke again.

'Your Highness would have this letter writ