"None, Madam." The Queen Dowager hesitated a moment, then said— "I have not failed of late to put up prayers for His Majesty’s good success." "I thank you, Madam." Catherine of Braganza pulled at her curling feather fan and laughed. "We are both in a strange position, are we not?" "The positions God put us in," said Mary coldly. She wondered why the other woman paused to talk. The Queen Dowager continued to smile over her fan. "I think to go back to Portugal." "That must be as Your Majesty pleaseth." "England is no longer the same to me." Mary’s hand tightened on the rich back of the settle. She read perfectly well the scorn of the Stewart’s wife for the usurper and the Protestant. "I find Whitehall a little dull," continued Catherine, with a malicious twist of her lip. "Geneva bands and black coats are a strange sight in these halls——" "Certainly they were not seen here in the days of my Lady Portsmouth," flashed Mary. The little Portuguese winced slightly, but ignored the thrust. "I do not blame Your Majesty," she said. "You are not so fortunate in your court as I was; the Dutch," she raised her thin shoulders in a shrug, "do not make the best of courtiers——" "No," answered Mary impetuously; "but they make good husbands, Madam." Catherine made no attempt to turn this hit. She put her hand to her dark throat, and her large melancholy eyes filled with tears. She answered the thought and not the words. "I cared as much as you do, all the same;" she said, "and I shall always be a Jacobite for his—worthless—sake." "Forgive me," murmured Mary instantly. "I had no right. But do you be charitable. I am in great trouble, Madam, and very much alone." Catherine lifted her small olive face with a kind of defiant brightness. "We have that loneliness in common, Madam. If you or I had an heir it would have all been different. I shall say a mass for your husband his safety. Good night, Your Majesty." She swept her grave foreign courtsey and retired, followed by her silent duennas. Mary stood pressing her handkerchief to her lips, and felt the whole pageant of people, lights, speech, music, swing past her like reflections on troubled water—broken, scattered without substance or meaning. No news came. She dismissed the Court presently and went to her rooms; it was late, long past ten o’clock, yet she would not go to bed, but sat in her cabinet writing to the King. Sheet after sheet she covered with news, hopes, fears, love, entreaties for God’s blessings—all her heart indeed laid out before her one confidant. The candlelight hurt her eyes, weaker of late with work and tears, and at last she folded up the letter unfinished. The express did not go till the morning, and she hoped that by then she might have the long-looked-for news from Ireland. When she rose from her desk she was utterly tired, yet could not rest—there was so much to do.