“I see,” she said, rising, and laying her hand on Betty’s arm. “Give me your help, wench, to the house, for I am not strong in heart or body. You loved the virtue of that dead queen, and you have seen me rejoice at her fall. Yet bethink you, Mistress Carew, how mighty was my temptation; and I was young and had been bred in that gay court beyond the seas. Judge not too sharply, lest you be in like case; for you have a beauty as great as mine in my first youth. My heart is heavy; I would have some about me to love Queen Anne Boleyn. I charge you, mistress, to think less of the dead and more of the living queen, who bears in her breast a sorrow and alas, has failed to bring a prince to England!” CHAPTER XIV THE STRANGE HOUSE BY THE THAMES IT was evening and it was strangely quiet at Greenwich Palace. The king was again absent, and the queen kept her state alone. The gay rufflers of the court were gathered in other quarters, however, for that day Anne had but few of her own maids about her. Grooms and lackeys crowded the outer corridors, but the lofty apartments of the queen were well nigh empty. It was reported that she was indisposed, but this was rather an excuse for the seclusion she desired. She sat in a great room hung with rich-hued tapestries, a fire blazing on the hearth and a hundred tapers burning; its brilliance, warmth, the delicate perfume in the air being a strange contrast to those rooms at Kimbolton where a queen had died. Anne Boleyn herself was clad in white and silver brocade, a cape of Flemish lace upon her shoulders, strings of pearls about that slender throat, and on her head a coif of crimson velvet edged with pearls, a great diamond set in the front and shining on her brow like a star. But for her pallor and the haggard look about her eyes, she was as beautiful as she was in her days of triumph as the Marchioness of Pembroke. She sat in the center of the room, and at her feet, upon a crimson cushion, was Mrs. Wyatt. About these two were gathered three other attendants, Lady Rochford, the queen’s sister-in-law, Mistress Gaynsford, and Betty Carew; Betty herself as lovely as the queen, dressed in pale blue with a chain of dull gold about her neck, given her by Anne. There were no others, and the talk was free of all restraint, the queen’s easy intercourse with her own people and her carelessness of speech afterwards feeding the fire when scandal was busy with her fair fame. Her favorite, Mary Wyatt, was recounting her adventures in seeking some one to cast her horoscope, and Anne, diverted by the story, encouraged her with eager attention. It was a charming scene, these five handsome women in their gay apparel, in that lofty chamber where the flames of so many tapers made a luster that expelled all gloom, and only the pale face of the queen told the story of the secret trouble, the growing estrangement between her and the king. She let her jewelled hand rest caressingly on Mistress Wyatt’s shoulder while she talked.