“You are surely right, Sir Edwin.  I have no excuse.  I can have none; but I will tell you how it was.  You remember the day you left me in the waiting-room of the king’s council?—­when they were discussing my marriage without one thought of me, as if I were but a slave or a dumb brute that could not feel.”  She began to weep a little, but soon recovered herself.  “While waiting for you to return, the Duke of Buckingham came in.  I knew Henry was trying to sell me to the French king, and my heart was full of trouble—­from more causes than you can know.  All the council, especially that butcher’s son, were urging him on, and Henry himself was anxious that the marriage should be brought about.  He thought it would strengthen him for the imperial crown.  He wants everything, and is ambitious to be emperor.  Emperor!  He would cut a pretty figure!  I hoped, though, I should be able to induce him not to sacrifice me to his selfish interests, as I have done before, but I knew only too well it would tax my powers to the utmost this time.  I knew that if I did anything to anger or to antagonize him, it would be all at an end with me.  You know he is so exacting with other people’s conduct, for one who is so careless of his own—­so virtuous by proxy.  You remember how cruelly he disgraced and crushed poor Lady Chesterfield, who was in such trouble about her husband, and who went to Grouche’s only to learn if he were true to her.  Henry seems to be particularly sensitive in that direction.  One would think it was in the commandments:  ‘Thou shalt not go to Grouche’s.’  It may be that some have gone there for other purposes than to have their fortunes told—­to meet, to—­but I need not say that I—­” and she stopped short, blushing to her hair.

“Well, I knew I could do nothing with Henry if he once learned of that visit, especially as it resulted so fatally.  Oh! why did I go?  Why did I go?  That was why I hesitated to tell Henry at once.  I was hoping some other way would open whereby I might save Charles—­Master Brandon.  While I was waiting, along came the Duke of Buckingham, and as I knew he was popular in London, and had almost as much influence there as the king, a thought came to me that he might help us.

“I knew that he and Master Brandon had passed a few angry words at one time in my ball-room—­you remember—­but I also knew that the duke was in—­in love with me, you know, or pretended to be—­he always said he was—­and I felt sure I could, by a little flattery, induce him to do anything.  He was always protesting that he would give half his blood to serve me.  As if anybody wanted a drop of his wretched blood.  Poor Master Brandon! his blood ...” and the tears came, choking her words for the moment.  “So I told the duke I had promised you and Jane to procure Master Brandon’s liberty, and asked him to do it for me.  He gladly consented, and gave me his knightly word that it should be attended to without an hour’s delay.  He said it might have to be done secretly in the way of an escape—­not officially—­as the Londoners were very jealous of their rights and much aroused on account of the killing.  Especially, he said that at that time great caution must be used, as the king was anxious to conciliate the city in order to procure a loan for some purpose—­my dower, I suppose.