As Anthony came into the courtyard of Greenwich Palace an hour or two later he found it humming with movement and noise. Cooks were going to and fro with dishes, as dinner was only just ending; servants in the royal livery were dashing across with messages; a few great hounds for the afternoon's baiting were in a group near one of the gateways, snuffing the smell of cookery, and howling hungrily now and again. Anthony stopped one of the men, and sent him with a message to Mistress Corbet; and the servant presently returned, saying that the Court was just rising from dinner, and Mistress Corbet would see him in a parlour directly, if the gentleman would kindly follow him. A groom took his horse off to the stable, and Anthony himself followed the servant to a little oak-parlour looking on to a lawn with a yew hedge and a dial. He felt as one moving in a dream, bewildered by the rush of interviews, and oppressed by the awful burden that he bore at his heart. Nothing any longer seemed strange; and he scarcely gave a thought to what it meant when he heard the sound of trumpets in the court, as the Queen left the Hall. In five minutes more Mistress Corbet burst into the room; and her anxious look broke into tenderness at the sight of the misery in the lad's face. "Oh, Master Anthony," she cried, seizing his hand, "thank God you are here. And now what is to be done for him?" They sat down together in the window-seat. Mary was dressed in an elaborate rose-coloured costume; but her pretty lips were pale, and her eyes looked distressed and heavy. "I have hardly slept," she said, "since Saturday night. Tell me all that you know." Anthony told her the whole story, mechanically and miserably. "Ah," she said, "that was how it was. I understand it now. And what can we do? You know, of course, that he has been questioned in the Tower." Anthony turned suddenly white and sick. "Not the--not the----" he began, falteringly. She nodded at him mutely with large eyes and compressed lips. "Oh, my God," said Anthony; and then again, "O God." She took up one of his brown young hands and pressed it gently between her white slender ones. "I know," she said, "I know; he is a gallant gentleman." Anthony stood up shaking; and sat down again. The horror had goaded him into clearer consciousness. "Ah! what can we do?" he said brokenly. "Let me see the Queen. She will be merciful." "You must trust to me in this," said Mary, "I know her; and I know that to go to her now would be madness. She is in a fury with Pinart to-day at something that has passed about the Duke. You know Monsieur is here; she kissed him the other day, and the Lord only knows whether she will marry him or not. You must wait a day or two; and be ready when I tell you." "But," stammered Anthony, "every hour we wait, he suffers." "Oh, you cannot tell that," said Mary, "they give them a long rest sometimes; and it was only yesterday that he was questioned."