We rode on rapidly and did not stop in London except to give the horses drink.

After crossing the bridge, Mary said, half to Jane and half to herself:  “I will never marry the French king—­never.”  Mary was but a girl pitted against a body of brutal men, two of them rulers of the two greatest nations on earth—­rather heavy odds, for one woman.

We rode down to Greenwich and entered the palace without exciting comment, as the princess was in the habit of coming and going at will.

The king and queen and most of the courtiers were in London—­at Bridewell House and Baynard’s Castle—­where Henry was vigorously pushing the loan of five hundred thousand crowns for Mary’s dower, the only business of state in which, at that time, he took any active interest.  Subsequently, as you know, he became interested in the divorce laws, and the various methods whereby a man, especially a king, might rid himself of a distasteful wife; and after he saw the truth in Anne Boleyn’s eyes, he adopted a combined policy of church and state craft that has brought us a deal of senseless trouble ever since—­and is like to keep it up.

As to Mary’s dower, Henry was to pay Louis only four hundred thousand crowns, but he made the marriage an excuse for an extra hundred thousand, to be devoted to his own private use.

When we arrived at the palace, the girls went to their apartments and I to mine, where I found Brandon reading.  There was only one window to our common room—­a dormer-window, set into the roof, and reached by a little passage as broad as the window itself, and perhaps a yard and a half long.  In the alcove thus formed was a bench along the wall, cushioned by Brandon’s great campaign cloak.  In this window we often sat and read, and here was Brandon with his book.  I had intended to tell him the girls were coming, for when Mary asked me if I thought he would come to her at the palace, and when I had again said no, she reiterated her intention of going to him at once; but my courage failed me and I did not speak of it.

I knew that Mary ought not to come to our room, and that if news of it should reach the king’s ears there would be more and worse trouble than ever, and, as usual, Brandon would pay the penalty for all.  Then again, if it were discovered it might seriously compromise both Mary and Jane, as the world is full of people who would rather say and believe an evil thing of another than to say their prayers or to believe the holy creed.

I had said as much to the Lady Mary when she expressed her determination to go to Brandon.  She had been in the wrong so much of late that she was humbled; and I was brave enough to say whatever I felt; but she said she had thought it all over, and as every one was away from Greenwich it would not be found out if done secretly.

She told Jane she need not go; that she, Mary, did not want to take any risk of compromising her.

You see, trouble was doing a good work in the princess, and had made it possible for a generous thought for another to find spontaneous lodgment in her heart.  What a great thing it is, this human suffering, which so sensitizes our sympathy, and makes us tender to another’s pain.  Nothing else so fits us for earth or prepares us for heaven.