“Good-day, sir,” he said; “I have news that I hope will please you. His Grace intends to confer on me one more mark of his favour. I am to be Earl of Essex.” It was startling news. Ralph had supposed that the minister was not standing so high with the King as formerly, since the unfortunate incident of the Cleves marriage. He congratulated him warmly. “It is a happy omen,” said the other. “Let us pray that it be a constellation and not a single star. There are others of my friends, Mr. Torridon, who have claim to His Highness’ gratitude.” He looked at him smiling; and Ralph felt his heart quicken once more, as it always did, at the hint of an honour for himself. The business of Parliament went on; and several important bills became law. A land-act was followed by one that withdrew from most of the towns of England the protection of a sanctuary in the case of certain specified crimes; the navy was dealt with; and then in spite of the promises of the previous years a heavy money-bill was passed. Finally five more Catholics, four priests and a woman, were attainted for high treason on various charges. * * * * * Ralph was not altogether happy as May drew on. There began to be signs that his master’s policy with regard to the Cleves alliance was losing ground in the councils of the State; but Cromwell himself seemed to acquiesce, so it appeared as if his own mind was beginning to change. There was a letter to Pate, the ambassador to the Emperor, that Ralph had to copy one day, and he gathered from it that conciliation was to be used towards Charles in place of the old defiance. But he did not see much of Parliament affairs this month. Cromwell had told him to sort a large quantity of private papers that had gradually accumulated in Ralph’s own house at Westminster; for that he desired the removal of most of them to his own keeping. They were an enormous mass of documents, dealing with every sort and kind of the huge affairs that had passed through Cromwell’s hands for the last five years. They concerned hundreds of persons, living and dead--statesmen, nobles, the foreign Courts, priests, Religious, farmers, tradesmen--there was scarcely a class that was not represented there. Ralph sat hour after hour in his chair with locked doors, sorting, docketting, and destroying; and amazed by this startling object-lesson of the vast work in which he had had a hand. There were secrets there that would burst like a bomb if they were made public--intrigues, bribes, threats, revelations; and little by little a bundle of the most important documents accumulated on the table before him. The rest lay in heaps on the floor. Those that he had set aside beneath his own eye were a miscellaneous set as regarded their contents; the only unity between them lay in the fact that they were especially perilous to Cromwell. Ralph felt as if he were handling gunpowder as he took them up one by one or added to the heap.