“Who told you of it?” asked the duke.

Mary saw she had made a mistake, and, after hesitating for a moment, answered:  “Sir Edwin Caskoden.  He had it from Master Brandon, I suppose.”  Rather adroit this was, but equidistant from both truth and effectiveness.

“I will go at once to London and arrange for Brandon’s escape,” said Buckingham, preparing to leave.  “But you must not divulge the fact that I do it.  It would cost me all the favor I enjoy with the people of London, though I would willingly lose that favor, a thousand times over, for a smile from you.”

She gave the smile, and as he left, followed his retiring figure with her eyes, and thought:  “After all, he has a kind heart.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, too, for she felt she had accomplished Brandon’s release, and still retained her dangerous secret, the divulging of which, she feared, would harden Henry’s heart against her blandishments and strand her upon the throne of France.

But she was not entirely satisfied with the arrangement.  She knew that her obligation to Brandon was such as to demand of her that she should not leave the matter of his release to any other person, much less to an enemy such as Buckingham.  Yet the cost of his freedom by a direct act of her own would be so great that she was tempted to take whatever risk there might be in the way that had opened itself to her.  Not that she would not have made the sacrifice willingly, or would not have told Henry all if that were the only chance to save Brandon’s life, but the other way, the one she had taken by Buckingham’s help, seemed safe, and, though not entirely satisfying, she could not see how it could miscarry.  Buckingham was notably jealous of his knightly word, and she had unbounded faith in her influence over him.  In short, like many another person, she was as wrong as possible just at the time when she thought she was entirely right, and when the cost of a mistake was at its maximum.

She recoiled also from the thought of Brandon’s “escape,” and it hurt her that he should be a fugitive from the justice that should reward him, yet she quieted these disturbing suggestions with the thought that it would be only for a short time, and Brandon, she knew, would be only too glad to make the sacrifice if it purchased for her freedom from the worse than damnation that lurked in the French marriage.

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All this ran quickly through Mary’s mind, and brought relief; but it did not cure the uneasy sense, weighing like lead upon her heart, that she should take up chance with this man’s life, and should put no further weight of sacrifice upon him, but should go to the king and tell him a straightforward story, let it hurt where it would.  With a little meditation, however, came a thought which decided the question and absolutely made everything bright again for her, so great was her capability for distilling light.  She would go at once to Windsor with Jane, and would