’Indeed you do well to remember me of that, master Boteler, for it goeth so hard with my memory in these troubled times that I had nigh forgotten it,’ said the countess dryly.

’I most certainly know, my lady, that his majesty hath gracious intentions towards your lord.’

‘Intention is but an addled egg,’ said the countess.  ’Give me deeds, if I may choose.’

’Alas! the king hath but little in his power, and the less that his business is thus kept waiting.’

’Your haste is more than your matter, master Boteler.  Believe me, whatsoever you consider of it, your going so hurriedly is of no great account, for to my knowledge there are others gone already with duplicates of the business.’

‘Madam, you astonish me.’

’I speak not without book.  My own cousin, William Winter, is one, and he is my husband’s friend, and hath no relation to my lord marquis of Ormond,’ said lady Glamorgan significantly.

’My lord, madam, is your lord’s very good friend, and I am very much his servant; but if his majesty’s business be done, I care not by whose hand it is.  But I thank your honour, for now I know wherefore I am stayed here.’

With these words Boteler withdrew—­and withdraws from my story, for his further proceedings are in respect of it of no consequence.

When he was gone, lady Glamorgan, turning a flushed face, and encountering Dorothy’s pale one, gave a hard laugh, and said: 

’Why, child! thou lookest like a ghost!  Was afeard of the man in my presence?’

’No, madam; but it seemed to me marvellous that his majesty’s messenger should receive such words from my mistress, and in my lord of Worcester’s house.’

‘I’ faith, marvellous it is, Dorothy, that there should be such good cause so to use him!’ returned lady Glamorgan, tears of vexation rising as she spoke.  ‘But an’ thou think I used the man roughly, thou shouldst have heard my father speak to him his mind of the king his master.’

‘Hath the king then shown himself unkingly, madam?’ said Dorothy aghast.

Whereupon lady Glamorgan told her all she knew, and all she could remember of what she had heard the marquis say to Boteler.

‘Trust me, child,’ she added, ’my lord Worcester, no less than I am, is cut to the heart by this behaviour of the king’s.  That my husband, silly angel, should say nothing, is but like him.  He would bear and bear till all was borne.’

‘But,’ said Dorothy, ‘the king is still the king.’

‘Let him be the king then,’ returned her mistress.  ’Let him look to his kingdom.  Why should I give him my husband to do it for him and be disowned therein?  I thank heaven I can do without a king, but I can’t do without my Ned, and there he lies in prison for him who cons him no thanks!  Not that I would overmuch heed the prison if the king would but share the blame with him; but for the king to deny him—­to say that he did all of his