“Moreover,” said Cicely, “I have pleadings and promises to make on my mother-queen’s behalf that would come strangely amiss if I had to feign that I had never seen her!  May I not seek the Queen at once, without waiting for this French gentleman?  Then would this weary, weary time be at an end!  Each time I hear a bell, or a cannon shot, I start and think, Oh! has she signed the warrant?  Is it too late?”

“There is no fear of that,” said Richard; “I shall know from Will Cavendish the instant aught is done, and through Diccon I could get thee brought to the Queen’s very chamber in time to plead.  Meantime, the Queen is in many minds.  She cannot bear to give up her kinswoman; she sits apart and mutters, ‘Aut fer aut feri,’ and ’Ne feriare feri.’  Her ladies say she tosses and sighs all night, and hath once or twice awoke shrieking that she was covered with blood.  It is Burghley and Walsingham who are forcing this on, and not her free will.  Strengthen but her better will, and let her feel herself secure, and she will spare, and gladly.”

“That do I hope to do,” said Cicely, encouraged.  The poor girl had to endure many a vicissitude and heart-sinking before M. de Bellievre appeared; and when he did come, he was a disappointment.

He was a most magnificent specimen of the mignons of Henri’s court.  The Embassy rang with stories of the number of mails he had brought, of the milk baths he sent for, the gloves he slept in, the valets who tweaked out superfluous hairs from his eyebrows, the delicacies required for his little dogs.

M. de Salmonnet reported that on hearing the story of “Mademoiselle,” as Cicely was called in the Embassy, he had twirled the waxed ends of his moustaches into a satirical twist, and observed, “That is well found, and may serve as a last resource.”

He never would say that he disbelieved what he was told of her; and when presented to her, he behaved with an exaggerated deference which angered her intensely, for it seemed to her mockery of her pretensions.  No doubt his desire was that Mary’s life should be granted to the intercession of his king rather than to any other consideration; and therefore once, twice, thrice, he had interviews with Elizabeth, and still he would not take the anxious suppliant, who was in an agony at each disappointment, as she watched the gay barge float down the river, and who began to devise setting forth alone, to seek the Queen at Richmond and end it all!  She would have done so, but that Diccon told her that since the alarm caused by Barnwell, it had become so much more difficult to approach the Queen that she would have no hope.

But she was in a restless state that made Madame de Salmonnet’s chatter almost distracting, when at last, far on in January, M. de Salmonnet came in.

“Well, mademoiselle, the moment is come.  The passports are granted, but Monsieur the Ambassador Extraordinary has asked for a last private audience, and he prays your Highness to be ready to accompany him at nine of the clock to-morrow morning.”