On Sunday the immensity of the swaying crowd, shouting and moving like a slow resistless flood through the streets, daunted her. There was no employment that day to keep any one within doors, and it seemed as if that labyrinth of human warrens called London had emptied itself into the narrow thoroughfares. She hesitated like a timid swimmer on the brink of a raging torrent, yet if she was to win access to the King she must trust herself to the current, which had this advantage, it set toward the direction in which she wished to go. If the streets could be compared to sluggish streams, the broad avenue or square of Whitehall might be likened to the lake into which they emptied. It was a packed mass of humanity, surging to and fro, as if influenced by mysterious tides, but making no progress. Way through it in any given direction might well seem an impossibility; but an alert atom, by constantly watching opportunity, could edge here and there, through chance openings, and, by a constant devotion to a given direction, ultimately attain any chosen point. Thus the girl, buffeted about, often well-nigh exhausted and breathless, came by the entrance to the palace that stood next the banqueting-house. The gates, however, were tightly closed, and guarded on the outside by a double row of soldiery, who stood the hustling of the mob with great good humour, being evidently cautioned not to exasperate the populace by any hostile act. The crowd itself seemed good-natured enough, although constant fighting took place here and there along its choking surface; but the great bulk of those present appeared to be out on a larking holiday, although they all riotously lent breath to the unceasing roar, calling for justice on Strafford. Occasionally there were shouts for the King, and demands that he should speak to them, but the windows of Whitehall Palace were blank and gave no sign of human occupancy. Suddenly Frances found herself in new danger through one of those unexplainable heaves of the many-throated beast at whose mercy she stood.