“Yes, that only makes it all the harder.  If you could give your kisses”—­and she blushed red as blood—­“to one for whom you care so little that you could leave him to die like a dog, when a word from you would have saved him, what reason have I to suppose they are not for every man?”

This gave Mary an opening of which she was quick enough to take advantage, for Brandon was in the wrong.

“You know that is not true.  You are not honest with me nor with yourself, and that is not like you.  You know that no other man ever had, or could have, any favor from me, even the slightest.  Wantonness is not among my thousand faults.  It is not that which angers you.  You are sure enough of me in that respect.  In truth, I had almost come to believe you were too sure, that I had grown cheap in your eyes, and you did not care so much as I thought and hoped for what I had to give, for after that day you came not near me at all.  I know it was the part of wisdom and prudence that you should remain away; but had you cared as much as I, your prudence would not have held you.”

She hung her head a moment in silence; then, looking at him, almost ready for tears, continued:  “A man has no right to speak in that way of a woman whose little favors he has taken, and make her regret that she has given a gift only that it may recoil upon her.  ‘Little,’ did I say?  Sir, do you know what that—­first—­kiss was to me?  Had I possessed all the crowns of all the earth I would have given them to you as willingly.  Now you know the value I placed on it, however worthless it was to you.  Yet I was a cheerful giver of that great gift, was I not?  And can you find it in your heart to make of it a shame to me—­that of which I was so proud?”

She stood there with head inclined a little to one side, looking at him inquiringly as if awaiting an answer.  He did not speak, but looked steadily at his book.  I felt, however, that he was changing, and I was sure her beauty, never more exquisite than in its present humility, would yet atone for even so great a fault as hers.  Err, look beautiful, and receive remission!  Such a woman as Mary carries her indulgence in her face.

I now began to realize for the first time the wondrous power of this girl, and ceased to marvel that she had always been able to turn even the king, the most violent, stubborn man on earth, to her own wishes.  Her manner made her words eloquent, and already, with true feminine tactics, she had put Brandon in the wrong in everything because he was wrong in part.

Then she quickly went over what she had said to me.  She told of her great dread lest the king should learn of the visit to Grouche’s and its fatal consequences, knowing full well it would render Henry impervious to her influence and precipitate the French marriage.  She told him of how she was going to the king the day after the arrest to ask his release, and of the meeting with Buckingham, and his promise.