“Where lies the blame? Who made me what I am?” Again his bold arm encompassed her. Side by side they peered down through the gloom at the rushing waters, and he seized an image from them. “Our love is like that seething tide,” he said. “To resist it is to labour in agony awhile, and then to perish.” “And to yield is to be swept away.” “To happiness,” he cried, and reverted to his earlier prayer. “Say that when... that afterwards, I may claim you for my own. Be true to yourself, obey the voice of instinct, and so win to happiness.” She looked up at him, seeking to scan the handsome face in that dim light that baffled her, and he observed the tumultuous heave of her white breast. “Can I trust thee, Robin? Can I trust thee? Answer me true!” she implored him, adorably weak, entirely woman now. “What does your own heart answer you?” quoth he, loaning close above her. “I think I can, Robin. And, anyway, I must. I cannot help myself. I am but a woman, after all,” she murmured, and sighed. “Be it as thou wilt. Come to me again when thou art free.” He bent lower, murmuring incoherently, and she put up a hand to pat his swarthy bearded cheek. “I shall make thee greater than any man in England, so thou make me happier than any woman.” He caught the hand in his and kissed it passionately, his soul singing a triumph song within him. Norfolk and Sussex and those other scowling ones should soon be whistled to the master’s heel. As they turned arm in arm into the gallery to retrace their steps, they came suddenly face to face with a slim, sleek gentleman, who bowed profoundly, a smile upon his crafty, shaven, priestly face. In a smooth voice and an accent markedly foreign, he explained that he, too, sought the cool of the terrace, not thinking to intrude; and upon that, bowing again, he passed on and effaced himself. It was Alvarez de Quadra, Bishop of Aquila, the argus-eyed ambassador of Spain. The young face of the Queen hardened. “I would I were as well served abroad as the King of Spain is here,” she said aloud, that the retreating ambassador might hear the dubious compliment; and for my lord’s ear alone she added under her breath: “The spy! Philip of Spain will hear of this.” “So that he hears something more, what shall it signify?” quoth my lord, and laughed. They paced the length of the gallery in silence, past the yeoman of the guard, who kept his watch, and into the first antechamber. Perhaps it was that meeting with de Quadra and my lord’s answer to her comment that prompted what now she asked: “What is it ails her, Robin?” “A wasting sickness,” he answered, never doubting to whom the question alluded. “You said, I think, that... that the end is very near.” He caught her meaning instantly. “Indeed, if she is not dead already, she is very nearly so.”