As Mr Rose uttered the last word, the Tower guns rang out, clear and sharp, on the frosty morning air. Few sounds ever thrilled so straight to the Gospellers' hearts as that. None uttered another word while they knelt. Even the Amen was silent now. They might pray no more for Edward Duke of Somerset. Slowly, one after another, all rose. All still, in silent mourning, they waited till the great clock of Saint Botolph's rang out eight times. The next minute every door in the street was opened, and men were pouring out in a mass toward Aldgate. Then Mr Rose, with a heavy sigh, rose and held out his hand. That action unloosed the tongues of the party. "Ah! God be his rest!" said Dr Thorpe, meditatively. "He did not alway the right, but--" "Do you?" answered Mr Rose, pointedly enough, with a quick flash in his eyes. "As said poor King Harry, `Kingdoms are but cares,'" said John [Note 3]. "He hath found a better now." "He hath found a better, I am assured," answered Mr Rose, "and is now singing the new song before the Throne. Methinks he doth not wish himself back now." "I marvel," suggested Dr Thorpe, half sorrowfully, yet a little scornfully, "how he and the Queen Katherine shall get along the one with the other in Heaven?" "I count, old friend," answered John, "that the Lutheran Queen and the Gospelling Duke will each be taken up too much with the mercy that hath forgiven his sins, to have any leisure for counting up those of the other." "Well, they will lack something of the sort," replied the old man. "How can there be disagreement where each seeth clear?" said Mr Rose, "or how any disliking in the presence of the Mediator?" Dr Thorpe made no answer, but he shook Mr Rose's offered hand warmly; and when he was gone, he said, "That is a good man. I would I were a better." "Amen!" responded Avery, "for us all." About the middle of March came Annis Holland to pay her farewell visit to Isoult. She was a quiet, gentle-looking woman, rather short, and inclining to embonpoint, her hair black, and her eyes dark grey. She was to start for Spain on the 22nd of the same month, under the escort of Don Jeronymo, a Spanish gentleman in the household of the Duchess of Suffolk. The city to which she was bound was Tordesillas, and there (where the Queen resided) she was to await the orders of the Marquis of Denia, who was her Majesty's Comptroller. Annis promised to write to her friend twice every year, while she remained abroad. A few days after Annis's departure, there was a dinner-party at the Lamb. The guests were Mr and Mrs Underhill, Mr and Mrs Rose, Thekla, and Mr Holland.