" said Humfrey.

"Come, come, my fair youth, stand not on these points. 'Tis true my
good colleague hath an excess of zeal, and I could wish he could have
found it in his heart to leave the poor lady these marks of dignity
that hurt no one. I would have no hand in it, and I am glad thou
wouldst not. He knoweth that he had no power to require such service
of thee. He will say no more, and I trust that neither wilt thou; for
it would not be well to change warders at this time. Another might not
be so acceptable to the poor lady, and I would fain save her all that I
can."

Humfrey bowed, and thanked "him of milder mood," nor was any further
notice taken of this hasty dismissal.

When next he had to enter the Queen's apartments, the absence of all
the tokens of her royal rank was to him truly a shock, accustomed as he
had been, from his earliest childhood, to connect them with her, and
knowing what their removal signified.

Mary, who was writing, looked up as, with cap in hand, he presented
himself on one knee, his head bowed lower than ever before, perhaps to
hide the tear that had sprung to his eye at sight of her pale, patient
countenance.

"How now, sir?" she said. "This obeisance is out of place to one
already dead in law. Don your bonnet. There is no queen here for an
Englishman."

"Ah! madam, suffer me. My reverence cannot but be greater than ever,"
faltered Humfrey from his very heart, his words lost in the kiss he
printed on the hand she granted him.

Mary bent "her gray discrowned head," crowned in his eyes as the Queen
of Sorrows, and said to Marie de Courcelles, who stood behind her, "Is
it not true, ma mie, that our griefs have this make-weight, namely,
that they prove to us whose are the souls whose generosity is above all
price! And what saith thy good father, my Humfrey?"

He had not ventured on bringing the letter into the apartments, but he
repeated most of the substance of it, without, however, greatly raising
the hopes of the Queen, though she was gratified that her cause was not
neglected either by her son or by her brother-in-law.

"They, and above all my poor maid, will be comforted to have done their
utmost," she said; "but I scarcely care that they should prevail. As I
have written to my cousin Elizabeth, I am beholden to her for ending my
long captivity, and above all for conferring on me the blessings and
glories of one who dies for her faith, all unworthy as I am!" and she