e a thundercloud. You'll find in to-morrow's antagonist,
Ralph Percy, as potent a conjurer as your cousin Hotspur found in
Glendower. He'll conjure you up the Tower, and a hanging, drawing, and
quartering. Who touches the King's favorite had safer touch the King.
It's _lese-majeste_, you contemplate."

He lit his pipe and blew out a great cloud of smoke, then burst into
a roar of laughter. "My Lord High Admiral may see you through. Zooks!
there'll be a raree-show worth the penny, behind the church to-morrow, a
Percy striving with all his might and main to serve a Villiers! Eureka!
There is something new under the sun, despite the Preacher!" He blew out
another cloud of smoke. By this the tankard was empty, and his cheeks
were red, his eyes moist, and his laughter very ready.

"Where's the Lady Jocelyn Leigh?" he asked. "May I not have the honor to
kiss her hand before I go?"

I stared at him. "I do not understand you," I said coldly. "There
's none within but Mistress Percy. She is weary, and rests after her
journey. We came from Weyanoke this morning."

He shook with laughter. "Ay, ay, brave it out!" he cried. "It's what
every man Jack of us said you would do! But all's known, man! The
Governor read the King's letters in full Council an hour ago. She's the
Lady Jocelyn Leigh; she 's a ward of the King's; she and her lands are
to wed my Lord Carnal!"

"She was all that," I replied. "Now she 's my wife."

"You'll find that the Court of High Commission will not agree with you."

My rapier lay across my knees, and I ran my hand down its worn scabbard.
"Here 's one that agrees with me," I said. "And up there is Another,"
and I lifted my hat.

He stared. "God and my good sword!" he cried. "A very knightly
dependence, but not to be mentioned nowadays in the same breath with
gold and the King's favor. Better bend to the storm, man; sing low while
it roars past. You can swear that you did n't know her to be of finer
weave than dowlas. Oh, they'll call it in some sort a marriage, for the
lady's own sake; but they'll find flaws enough to crack a thousand such
mad matches. The divorce is the thing! There's precedent, you know. A
fair lady was parted from a brave man not a thousand years ago, because
a favorite wanted her. True, Frances Howard wanted the favorite, whilst
this beauty of yours"--

"You will please not couple the name of my wife with the name of that
adulteress!" I interrupted fiercely.

He started; then c