... More marvellous than all was that
those who knew her best and longest loved her most; her servants wept or
groaned themselves into fevers if they were excluded from her too long;
of her as of the Wisdom of old might it be said that, "They who ate her
hungered yet, and they who drank her thirsted yet."... It was to this
miracle of humanity, then, that this priest was to come....
* * * * *
He sat up suddenly, once more pressing his hand to his breast, where his
Treasure lay hidden, as he heard steps crossing the paved hall outside.
Then he rose to his feet and bowed as a tall man came swiftly in,
followed by the apothecary.
II
It was a lean, harsh-faced man that he saw, long-moustached and
melancholy-eyed--"grim as a goose," as the physician had said--wearing,
even in this guarded household, a half-breast and cap of steel. A long
sword jingled beside him on the stone floor and clashed with his spurred
boots. He appeared the last man in the world to be the companion of a
sorrowing Queen; and it was precisely for this reason that he had been
chosen to replace the courtly lord Shrewsbury and the gentle Sir Ralph
Sadler. (Her Grace of England said that she had had enough of nurses for
gaolers.) His voice, too, resembled the bitter clash of a key in a lock.
"Well, sir," he said abruptly, "Mr. Bourgoign tells me you are a friend
of his."
"I have that honour, sir."
"You met in Paris, eh?.
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