“I cannot say there is much of interest.  I have learned the new dance from Caskoden, if that is news, and hope for a favor at our next ball from the fairest lady in the world.”

“And quite welcome,” returned Mary, complacently appropriating the title, “and welcome to more than one, I hope, my lord.”

This graciousness would have looked suspicious to one with less vanity than Buckingham, but he saw no craft in it.  He did see, however, that Mary did not know who had attacked her in Billingsgate, and he felt greatly relieved.

The duke smiled and smirked, and was enchanted at her kindness.  They walked down the corridor, talking and laughing, Mary awaiting an opportunity to put the important question without exciting suspicion.  At last it came, when Buckingham, half inquiringly, expressed his surprise that Mary should be found sitting at the king’s door.

“I am waiting to see the king,” said she.  “Little Caskoden’s friend, Brandon, has been arrested for a brawl of some sort over in London, and Sir Edwin and Lady Jane have importuned me to obtain his release, which I have promised to do.  Perhaps your grace will allow me to petition you in place of carrying my request to the king.  You are quite as powerful as his majesty in London, and I should like to ask you to obtain for Master Brandon his liberty at once.  I shall hold myself infinitely obliged, if your lordship will do this for me.”  She smiled upon him her sweetest smile, and assumed an indifference that would have deceived any one but Buckingham.  Upon him, under the circumstances, it was worse than wasted.  Buckingham at once consented, and said, that notwithstanding the fact that he did not like Brandon, to oblige her highness, he would undertake to befriend a much more disagreeable person.

“I fear,” he said, “it will have to be done secretly—­by conniving at his escape rather than by an order for his release.  The citizens are greatly aroused over the alarming frequency of such occurrences, and as many of the offenders have lately escaped punishment by reason of court interference, I fear this man Brandon will have to bear the brunt, in the London mind, of all these unpunished crimes.  It will be next to impossible to liberate him, except by arranging privately with the keeper for his escape.  He could go down into the country and wait in seclusion until it is all blown over, or until London has a new victim, and then an order can be made pardoning him, and he can return.”

“Pardoning him!  What are you talking of, my lord?  He has done nothing to be pardoned for.  He should be, and shall be, rewarded.”  Mary spoke impetuously, but caught herself and tried to remedy her blunder.  “That is, if I have heard the straight of it.  I have been told that the killing was done in the defense of two—­women.”  Think of this poor unconscious girl, so full of grief and trouble, talking thus to Buckingham, who knew so much more about the affair than even she, who had taken so active a part in it.