She had been using her rosary, and she moved it in her lap. 'Any poor hedge priest would be a better guide on such a journey,' she answered listlessly. 'Why, God help us all,' he laughed, 'that were to carry simplicity into a throne-room. In a stable-yard it served. But you will not always find a king among horse-straws.' 'God send I find the King of Peace on a prison pallet,' she answered. 'Why, we are at cross purposes,' he said lightly. He laughed still more loudly when he heard that the King had threatened her with a gaol. 'Do you not see,' he asked, 'how that implies a great favour towards you?' 'Oh, mock on,' she answered. He leaned forward and spoke tenderly. 'Why, poor child,' he said. 'If a man be moved because you moved him, it was you who moved him. Now, if you can move such a heavy man that is a certain proof that he is not indifferent to you.' 'He threatened me with a gaol,' Katharine said bitterly. 'Aye,' Throckmorton answered, 'for you were in fault to him. That is ever the weakness of your simple natures. They will go brutally to work upon a man.' 'Tell me, then, in three words, what his Highness will do with me,' she said. 'There you go brutally to work again,' he said. 'I am a poor man that do love you. You ask what another man will do with you that affects you.' He stood up to his full height, dressed all in black velvet. 'Let us, then, be calm,' he said, though his voice trembled and he paused as if he had forgotten the thread of his argument. 'Why, even so, you were in grievous fault to his Highness that is a prince much troubled. As thus: You were certain of the rightness of your cause.' 'It is that of the dear saints,' Katharine said.... He touched his bonnet with three fingers. 'You are certain,' he repeated. 'Nevertheless, here is a man whose fury is like an agony to him. He looks favourably upon you. But, if a man be formed to fight he must fight, and call the wrong side good.' 'God help you,' Katharine said. 'What can be good that is set in array against the elect of God?' 'These be brave words,' he answered, 'but the days of the Crusades be over. Here is a King that fights with a world that is part good, part evil. In part he fights for the dear saints; in part they that fight against him fight for the elect of God. Then he must call all things well upon his side, if he is not to fail where he is right as well as where he is wrong.' 'I do not take you well,' Katharine said. 'When the Lacedæmonians strove with the Great King....' 'Why, dear heart,' he said, 'those were the days of a black and white world; now we are all grey or piebald.' 'Then tell me what the King will do with me,' she answered. He made a grimace. 'All your learning will not make of you but a very woman. It is: What will he do? It is: A truce to words. It is: Get to the point. But the point is this....' 'In the name of heaven,' she said, 'shall I go to gaol or no?'