her daughters in the days of their intimacy with the Queen; and the aspersions on the unfortunate Earl were, it was soon evident, merely due to the violent and unscrupulous tongues of the Countess and her daughter Mary.  No wonder that Lord Shrewsbury wrote letters in which he termed the lady “his wicked and malicious wife,” and expressed his conviction that his son Gilbert’s mind had been perverted by her daughter.

The indignation of the captive Queen was fully equal to his, as one after another of her little court returned and was made to detail the points on which he or she had been interrogated.  Susan found her pacing up and down the floor like a caged tigress, her cap and veil thrown back, so that her hair—­far whiter than what was usually displayed—­was hanging dishevelled, her ruff torn open, as if it choked back the swelling passion in her throat.

“Never, never content with persecuting me, they must insult me!  Is it not enough that I am stripped of my crown, deprived of my friends; that I cannot take a step beyond this chamber, queen as I am, without my warder?  Must they attaint me as a woman?  Oh, why, why did the doom spare me that took my little brothers?  Why did I live to be the most wretched, not of sovereigns alone, but of women?”

“Madam,” entreated Marie de Courcelles, “dearest madam, take courage.  All these horrible charges refute themselves.”

“Ah, Marie! you have said so ten thousand times, and what charge has ever been dropped?”

“This one is dropped!” exclaimed Susan, coming forward.  “Yes, your Grace, indeed it is!  The Commissioner himself told my husband that no one believed it for a moment.”

“Then why should these men have been sent but to sting and gall me, and make me feel that I am in their power?” cried the Queen.

“They came,” said the Secretary Curll, “because thus alone could the Countess be silenced.”

“The Countess!” exclaimed Mary.  “So my cousin hath listened to her tongue!”

“Backed by her daughter’s,” added Jean Kennedy.

“It were well that she knew what those two dames can say of her Majesty herself, when it serves them,” added Marie de Courcelles.

“That shall she!” exclaimed Mary.  “She shall have it from mine own hand!  Ha! ha!  Elizabeth shall know the choice tales wherewith Mary Talbot hath regaled us, and then shall she judge how far anything that comes from my young lady is worth heeding for a moment.  Remember you all the tales of the nips and the pinches?  Ay, and of all the endearments to Leicester and to Hatton?  She shall have it all, and try how she likes the dish of scandal of Mary Talbot’s cookery, sauced by Bess of Hardwicke.  Here, nurse, come and set this head-gear of mine in order, and do you, my good Curll, have pen, ink, and paper in readiness for me.”

The Queen did little but write that morning.  The next day, on coming out from morning prayers, which the Protestants of her suite attended, with the rest of the Shrewsbury household, Barbara Mowbray contrived to draw Mrs. Talbot apart as they went towards the lodge.