At times she would fall into one of her old fits of anger because Brandon had not come to see her before he left, but soon the anger melted into tears, and the tears brought a sort of joy when she thought that he had run away from her because he loved her.  After Brandon’s defense of her in Billingsgate, Mary had begun to see the whole situation differently, and everything was changed.  She still saw the same great distance between them as before, but with this difference, she was looking up now.  Before that event he had been plain Charles Brandon, and she the Princess Mary.  She was the princess still, but he was a demi-god.  No mere mortal, thought she, could be so brave and strong and generous and wise; and above all, no mere mortal could vanquish odds of four to one.  In the night she would lie on Jane’s arm, and amid smothered sobs, would softly talk of her lover, and praise his beauty and perfections, and pour her pathetic little tale over and over again into Jane’s receptive ear and warm responsive heart; and Jane answered with soft little kisses that would have consoled Niobe herself.  Then Mary would tell how the doors of her life, at the ripe age of eighteen, were closed forever and forever, and that her few remaining years would be but years of waiting for the end.  At other times she would brighten, and repeat what Brandon had told her about New Spain; how fortune’s door was open there to those who chose to come, and how he, the best and bravest of them all, would surely win glory and fortune, and then return to buy her from her brother Henry with millions of pounds of yellow gold.  Ah, she would wait!  She would wait!  Like Bayard she placed her ransom at a high figure, and honestly thought herself worth it.  And so she was—­to Brandon, or rather had been.  But at this particular time the market was down, as you will shortly hear.

So Mary remained at Windsor and grieved and wept and dreamed, and longed that she might see across the miles of billowy ocean to her love! her love! her love!  Meanwhile Brandon had his trial in secret down in London, and had been condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered for having saved to her more than life itself.

Put not your trust in princesses!

CHAPTER X

Justice, O King!

Such was the state of affairs when I returned from France.

How I hated myself because I had not faced the king’s displeasure and had not refused to go until Brandon was safely out of his trouble.  It was hard for me to believe that I had left such a matter to two foolish girls, one of them as changeable as the wind, and the other completely under her control.  I could but think of the difference between myself and Brandon, and well knew, had I been in his place, he would have liberated me or stormed the very walls of London single-handed and alone.

When I learned that Brandon had been in that dungeon all that long month, I felt that it would surely kill him, and my self-accusation was so strong and bitter, and my mental pain so great, that I resolved if my friend died, either by disease contracted in the dungeon or by execution of his sentence, that I would kill myself.  But that is a matter much easier sincerely to resolve upon than to execute when the time comes.