ith the keep closing
one side of it, and the others surrounded with huge massive walls,
shutting in a greensward with a well. There was a broad commodious
terrace in the thickness of the walls, intended as a station whence the
defenders could shoot between the battlements, but in time of peace
forming a pleasant promenade sheltered from the wind, and catching on
its northern side the meridian rays of this Martinmas summer day, so
that physician as well as jailer consented to permit the captive there
to take the air.

"Some watch there must be," said Paulett anxiously, when his colleague
reported the consent he had given.

"It will suffice, then," said Sir Drew Drury, "if the officer of the
guard--Talbot call you him?--stands at the angle of the court, so as to
keep her in his view. He is a well-nurtured youth, and will not vex
her."

"Let him have the guard within call," said Paulett, and to this Drury
assented, perhaps with a little amusement at the restless precautions
of the invalid.

Accordingly, Humfrey took up his station, as unobtrusively as he could,
at the corner of the terrace, and presently, through a doorway at the
other end saw the Queen, hooded and cloaked, come forth, leaning
heavily on the arm of Dr. Bourgoin, and attended by the two Maries and
the two elder ladies. She moved slowly, and paused every few steps,
gazing round her, inhaling the fresh air and enjoying the sunshine, or
speaking a caressing word to little Bijou, who leaped about, and
barked, and whined with delight at having her out of doors again.
There was a seat in the wall, and her ladies spread cushions and cloaks
for her to sit on it, warmed as it was by the sun; and there she
rested, watching a starling running about on the turf, his
gold-bespangled green plumage glistening. She hardly spoke; she seemed
to be making the most of the repose of the fair calm day. Humfrey would
not intrude by making her sensible of his presence, but he watched her
from his station, wondering within himself if she cared for the peril
to which she had exposed the daughter so dear to him.

Such were his thoughts when an angry bark from Bijou warned him to be
on the alert. A man--ay, one of the new men-at-arms--was springing up
the ramp leading to the summit of the wall almost immediately in front
of the little group. There was a gleam of steel in his hand. With one
long ringing whistle, Humfrey bounded from his place, and at the moment
when the ru