“Make ready at once,” he said.  “We will go back to London.”

In a short time we were all at the main stairway ready to mount for the return trip.

The Lady Mary’s window was just above, and I saw Jane watching us as we rode away.

After we were well out of Mary’s sight the king called me to him, and he, together with de Longueville, Wolsey and myself, turned our horses’ heads, rode rapidly by a circuitous path back to another door of the castle and re-entered without the knowledge of any of the inmates.

We four remained in silence, enjoined by the king, and in the course of an hour, the princess, supposing every one had gone, came down stairs and walked into the room where we were waiting.

It was a scurvy trick, and I felt a contempt for the men who had planned it.  I could see that Mary’s first impulse was to beat a hasty retreat back into her citadel, the bed, but in truth she had in her make-up very little disposition to retreat.  She was clear grit.  What a man she would have made!  But what a crime it would have been in nature to have spoiled so perfect a woman.  How beautiful she was!  She threw one quick, surprised glance at her brother and his companions, and lifting up her exquisite head carelessly hummed a little tune under her breath as she marched to the other end of the room with a gait that Juno herself could not have improved upon.

I saw the king smile, half in pride of her, and half in amusement, and the Frenchman’s little eyes feasted upon her beauty with a relish that could not be mistaken.

Henry and the ambassador spoke a word in whispers, when the latter took a box from a huge side pocket and started across the room toward Mary with the king at his heels.

Her side was toward them when they came up, but she kept her attitude as if she had been of bronze.  She had taken up a book that was lying on the table and was examining it as they approached.

De Longueville held the box in his hand, and bowing and scraping said in broken English:  “Permit to me, most gracious princess, that I may have the honor to offer on behalf of my august master, this little testament of his high admiration and love.”  With this he bowed again, smiled like a crack in a piece of old parchment, and held his box toward Mary.  It was open, probably in the hope of enticing her with a sight of its contents—­a beautiful diamond necklace.

She turned her face ever so little and took it all in with one contemptuous, sneering glance out of the corners of her eyes.  Then quietly reaching out her hand she grasped the necklace and deliberately dashed it in poor old de Longueville’s face.

“There is my answer, sir!  Go home and tell your imbecile old master I scorn his suit and hate him—­hate him—­hate him!” Then with the tears falling unheeded down her cheeks, “Master Wolsey, you butcher’s cur!  This trick was of your conception; the others had not brains enough to think of it.  Are you not proud to have outwitted one poor heart-broken girl?  But beware, sir; I tell you now I will be quits with you yet, or my name is not Mary.”