“Let the young man be brought to us at once,” said the Queen. “And the girl also.” “The commands of your Majesty shall be obeyed,” said the Lord Treasurer. “Both prisoners shall be sent for immediately.” With a low bow, the minister quitted the room. A subtle but marked change had suddenly taken place in the Queen’s manner. She turned to the playwright with a certain kindness in the hard eyes. “Belike, sirrah,” she said, “your play may prove a comedy, after all.” The playwright stood before her in silence with bent head. In the strong frame, with its tense outlines, was a profound humility which the Queen was wholly at a loss to understand. “How say you, sirrah? Would you not have it so?” “Life is never a comedy, your grace,” said the playwright, speaking very gently, almost as one who thinks aloud. “A dark saying,” said the Queen, “How say you, Mary?” She turned, with an ironical air, to the young woman who was working so busily upon the sampler. “Perhaps Master Shakespeare will expound it for us out of the infinite store of his wisdom. You don’t find life a very tragic matter, eh, my girl, you who have the whole world at your feet?” The august lady gave her gentlewoman a light box on the ear. Mistress Fytton, whose dark and brilliant beauty had its sinister aspect, rose from her stool with a sigh and a little laugh. “It is the business of a poet, your grace, to be melancholy,” said Mistress Mary. “Yes, I had not thought of that,” said the Queen. “But I suspect, Miss Malapert, you know more of poets than I do.” “God forbid, your grace,” Mistress Mary made a deep but mocking curtsy. “You impudent hussy!” And this time, the royal lady gave her gentlewoman so sound a box on the ear, that it rang through the room. CHAPTER XXXIX GERVASE and Anne had been taken the previous evening from Richmond to the Tower. They were placed in a prison as dismal as on that occasion of their first meeting, which now seemed so far away in the past. But Gervase was better able now to prepare himself for the grim fate that too surely awaited him. Both these children of destiny had had many weeks in which to make ready for that which was now to befall them. Their souls were numb. Long ago, they had given up all hope of life. Indeed, they had almost given up all desire of it, such had been their sufferings. The only boon they now craved of Providence was that they might be allowed to die together. In the course of the afternoon of the first day of their imprisonment, word was brought to them that the Queen desired to see them at once, that they were to be carried before her immediately, and that she herself would there and then decide their fate.