The fact that a messenger from Scotland had arrived in the morning with news of the ambassadors to the Queen Regent, without any mention of either Lord Pembroke's or Lord Everingham's sudden departure from thence, had completely calmed any fears he still might have of the latter's too sudden reappearance at Hampton Court. In any case now he had still some days before him during which he could consolidate his success, by establishing direct intercourse between King Philip and the Queen of England. He hoped before many hours had elapsed to obtain from Mary Tudor an actual letter, writ in her own hand to her royal betrothed. Thus secure in his invulnerable position, the Cardinal had thought it prudent as well as expedient to accede to Ursula's wishes, which seemed very like commands, and he had used his diplomatic skill to good purpose in persuading Mary Tudor to allow the interview between the young girl and His Grace. At the same time His Eminence was sufficiently wary so to manipulate his puppets that the interview should be of the briefest, and in this he was like enough to succeed. It was in order to celebrate the happy return of His Grace to Court that the Queen had, at his request, granted a free pardon to all those who were to be brought for trial on the same day as the Duke. Two o'clock in the afternoon of the day following this great event, had been fixed when all these poor people, vagrants and beggars mostly, one or two political prisoners, perhaps, were to thank His Grace for their freedom publicly in the grounds of the Palace. The Cardinal, well aware of this, skilfully working too on the Queen's still restive jealousy, had suggested to Mary that Ursula Glynde should await the Duke of Wessex in the hall at fifteen minutes before the hour. "A quarter of an hour, Your Majesty," he said insinuatingly, when first on that same morning he had broached the subject, "fifteen short minutes, during which the breach 'twixt His Grace and a disgraced maiden can but be irretrievably widened." "Your Eminence seems to think that I desire a breach," retorted Mary with Tudor-like haughtiness. "Far from me even to think such a thought," rejoined the Cardinal blandly; "but as a faithful servant of Your Majesty, soon to become a loyal subject when Your Grace is Queen of Spain, I hold the welfare of all those whom you deign to honour very much at heart. . . . And I was thinking of His Grace of Wessex." "What of him, my lord?" "The Duke is proud, Your Majesty; would it be well, think you, if a girl of Lady Ursula Glynde's reputation were to become Duchess of Wessex?" "Think you she hath the desire?" "_Quien sabe?_" he replied guardedly, "but an Your Majesty will trust my judgment, a brief interview with His Grace would soon scatter her hopes to the winds."