She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and ran to the door. But there she cried out-- 'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath. 'It is upon you if I speak,' she said. 'Merciful God, do not bid me speak before the Queen!' She held out her hands as if she had been praying. 'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fled here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! Merciful God! Bid me not to speak.' 'Speak!' the Lady Mary said. The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharine stood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, for she thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears nor eyes. 'Speak!' the Lady Mary said. 'God help you, be it on your head,' the woman cried out, 'that I speak before the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. I would not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!' The Lady Mary's hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from her opened fingers jarred on the hard floor. 'Merciful God!' she said. 'Have I such a father?' 'It was the King!' the woman said. 'His Highness came to life when he heard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than she reported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of a marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.' 'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way to tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother's confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!' 'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye wot--better than I did before--what this King is. I tell you--and I swear it----' She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open. The Queen was moving towards her. She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the air, but her head was erect. 'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!' Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep. V