the two ladies
in the outer apartment to hinder their holding any communication
through the servants. All requests had to be made to him, and on the
first morning Mary made a most urgent one for writing materials, books,
and either needlework or spinning.

Pen and ink had been expressly forbidden, the only book in the house
was a thumbed and torn primer, but Dame Joan, after much grumbling at
fine ladies' whims, vouchsafed to send up a distaff, some wool, a piece
of unbleached linen, and a skein of white thread.

Queen Mary executed therewith an exquisite piece of embroidery, which
having escaped Dame Joan's first impulse to burn it on the spot,
remained for many years the show and the wonder of Tixall. Save for
this employment, she said she should have gone mad in her utter
uncertainty about her own fate, or that of those involved with her. To
ask questions of Ashton was like asking them of a post. He would give
her no notion whether her servants were at Chartley or not, whether
they were at large or in confinement, far less as to who was accused of
the plot, and what had been discovered. All that could be said for him
was that his churlishness was passive and according to his ideas of
duty. He was a very reluctant and uncomfortable jailer, but he never
insulted, nor wilfully ill-used his unfortunate captive.

Thus Mary was left to dwell on the little she knew, namely, that
Babington and his fellows were arrested, and that she was supposed to
be implicated; but there her knowledge ceased, except that Humfrey's
warning convinced her that Cuthbert Langston had been at least one of
the traitors. He had no doubt been offended and disappointed at that
meeting during the hawking at Tutbury.

"Yet I need scarcely seek the why or the wherefore," she said. "I have
spent my life in a world of treachery. No sooner do I take a step on
ground that seems ever so firm, than it proves a quicksand. They will
swallow me at last."

Daily--more than daily--did she and Cicely go over together that
hurried conversation on the moor, and try to guess whether Langston
intended to hint at Cicely's real birth. He had certainly not
disclosed her secret as yet, or Paulett would never have selected her
as sprung of a loyal house, but he might guess at the truth, and be
waiting for an opportunity to sell it dearly to those who would regard
her as possessed of dangerous pretensions.

And far more anxiously did the Queen recur to exam