"Alack!" I cried, "too well I do know it, dear lady; and, albeit my tongue is silent thereon, my heart doth grieve to see you comfortless of that which is the sole source of true comfort." "Tis not that troubles me," she answered, a little impatiently. "Thou art unreasonable, Constance. My duty to my lord shapes my outward behavior; but I have weighty cares, nevertheless. Dost thou mind that passage in the late duke our father's letter to his son and me?--that we should live in a lower degree, and out of London and from the court. Methinks a prophetic spirit did move him thus to write. My lord has a great heart and a generous temper, and loves to spend money in all sorts of ways, profitable and unprofitable, as I too well observe since we have been in London. And the queen sent him a store of messages by my Lord Essex, and others of his friends, that she was surprised not to see him at court; and that it was her highness's pleasure he should wait upon her, and she shall show him so much favor as he deserves, and such like inducements." "And hath my lord been to court?" I asked. "Yea, he hath been," she answered, sighing deeply. "He hath been forced to kiss the hand which signed his father's death-warrant. Constance, it is this which doth so pain me, that her majesty should think he hath in his heart no resentment of that mishap. She said to my Lady Berkeley some days since, when she sued for some favor at her hands, 'No, no, my Lady Berkeley; you love us not, and never will. You cannot forgive us your brother's death.' Why should her grace think a son hath less resentment of a father's loss than a sister?" Willing to minister comfort to her touching that on which I did, nevertheless, but too much consent to her thinking, I said, "In my lord's case, he must have needs appeared to mislike the queen and her government if he stayed away from court, and his duty to his sovereign compelleth him to render her so much homage as is due to her majesty." "Yea," cried my lady, "I be of the same mind with thee, that if my lord do live in London he is in a manner forced to swim with the tide, and God only knoweth into what a flood of troubles he may thus be led. But I have prevailed on him to go to Kenninghall, and there to enjoy that retired life his father passionately wished him to be contented with. So I do look, if it please God, to happy days when we leave this great city, where so many and great dangers beset us." "Have you been to court likewise, dear lady?" I asked; and she answered,