This intelligence filled Mary with more anxiety than she chose to manifest to her unsympathising surroundings; Cis meanwhile had been assisted to mount by Humfrey, who told her that Mrs. Curll was thought to be doing well, but that there were fears for the babe.  It was impossible to exchange many words, for they were immediately behind the Queen and her two warders, and Humfrey could only tell her that his father had been at Chartley, and had gone on to London; but there was inexpressible relief in hearing the sound of his voice, and knowing she had some one to think for her and protect her.  The promise she had made to the Queen only seemed to make him more entirely her brother by putting that other love out of the question.

There was a sad sight at the gate,—­a whole multitude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of “Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!”

Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, “Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you!  I am as much a beggar as yourselves!”

The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett assuring her that they were nothing but “a sort of idle folk,” who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston’s last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.

In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had—­on her increasing illness—­been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham’s house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.

She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, “See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my god-daughter into health to receive your husband again.  Nay, have no fears for him.  They cannot hurt him.  He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside.  My son shall write to claim him,” she declared with such an assumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.

“We will christen her at once,” said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant.  “Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my god-child.”

Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen’s delay, which kept his supper waiting.  Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsorship of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him.  So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.