"Your Majesty is mistaken," he rejoined calmly. "I know naught of Lady Ursula Glynde, and I defend no one by confessing my crime." "You'll not persist in that insensate confession." "'Twill not be necessary, Your Majesty, my judges have it in full, writ by mine own hand." "You'll recant it." "Why should I? 'Twas done willingly, in full possession of my faculties, under no compulsion." "You'll recant it!" she persisted obstinately. "Why should I?" "Because I ask it of you," she said with great gentleness, "because I . . ." She rose from her chair, and came closer to him. Then as he, respectfully, would have risen too, she placed a detaining hand upon his shoulder. "Listen, my lord," she said, "for I've thought of it all. . . . This is not a moment when foolish prejudices and mock modesty should stand in the way of so great an issue. . . . I would throw my soul, my future life, my chances of paradise on that one stake--your innocence. . . ." "Your Majesty . . ." "Nay, I pray you, do not waste these few valuable minutes in vain protestations, which I'll not believe. . . . There's not a sane man in this country who thinks you guilty. . . . Yet on this confession your judges and peers will condemn you to death . . . must condemn you, so that the law of England is satisfied--and you, my lord, will suffer death with a lie upon your lips." "The truth," rejoined Wessex firmly; "'twas I killed the Marquis de Suarez." "A lie, my lord, a lie," protested Mary passionately; "the first you've ever told, the last you'll be allowed to breathe. . . . But let it pass. . . . I'll not torture your pride by forcing you to repeat that monstrous tale again. Would I could wrench her secret from the cowardly lips of that hussy. . . . Oh! if I were a man . . . a king like my father! . . . I'd have her broken on the wheel, tortured on the rack, whipped, lacerated, burnt, but I'd have the truth from her!" Wessex took her hand in his. She was trembling from head to foot. The inward, real Mary Tudor had risen to the surface for this one brief moment. All the cruelty in her, which in after life made this wretched woman's name the byword of history, seemed just then to smother her very womanhood, her every tender thought. At the touch of Wessex' hand she paused suddenly, shamed and in tears, that he should have seen her like this. "Before she came you said many sweet words to me," she murmured, as if trying to find an excuse for her terrible outburst. "Ah! I know . . . I know . . ." she added, with a bitter tone of melancholy, "you never loved me . . . how could you? . . . Men like you do not love an ill-favoured creature like me, old, bad-tempered . . . with something of the brute under the queenly robes. . . . But . . . you had affection for me once, my dear lord . . . and an unimpassioned love can bring happiness sometimes. . . . I would soon make you forget these last terrible days . . . and . . ."