"But we will not mar the happiness of this joyous day," she continued after a while, speaking with enforced cheerfulness. "My Lord High Steward here would desire our confirmation of the free pardon granted in honour of it, to all who were awaiting trial." "If Your Majesty will deign to append the royal signature," said Lord Chandois, who was fingering a large document. "With pleasure, my lord. Are there many awaiting trial?" Lord Chandois spread the document out on the table, and Mary Tudor prepared to sign it. "A dozen or so, Your Majesty," explained the Lord High Steward; "men and women accused of roguery, witchcraft, and vagabondage." With a bold stroke of her pen Mary added her royal name to the declaration of a free pardon. "Let them be set free," she said, while Lord Chandois once more took possession of the paper. "It is our royal desire that these poor louts should thank His Grace of Wessex for their liberty, which they owe to him." Once more she turned with her usual affectionate gentleness towards the Duke. Throughout this brief, seemingly indifferent scene, Ursula had stood by, like an image carved in stone. Etiquette forbade her retirement until the Queen granted her leave, and Mary seemed desirous to keep her close at hand, as a contrast, perhaps, to the exuberant joy which prevailed among the other ladies and gentlemen there. In the midst of all this merriment and gaiety, the hubbub of many voices, the pleasant laughter and lively banter, two silent figures stood out in strange contrast. Ursula, rigid, ghostlike in her white draperies, her young face expressive of hopeless despair and of deadly sorrow kept in check, lest indifferent eyes read its miserable tale; and Wessex, moving like an automaton among his friends, answering at random, trying with all his might to keep his thoughts from straying, his eyes from wandering, towards that beautiful statue, which now seemed like an exquisite carven monument of his own vanished happiness. No one took much notice of Ursula Glynde, she was the disgraced maid-of-honour, the fallen star, scarce worth beholding, and she was glad of this isolation, which the selfishness of her former friends created around her. She looked for the last time upon the pomp and pageant of this glittering Court life; her very soul yearned for the peace and seclusion of austere convent walls. For the last time too she looked upon the man on whom she had lavished all the tenderness of her romantic temperament, whom she had set up on a pedestal of chivalry from which she felt loath even now to dethrone him.