"Your Majesty is ever gracious," replied Wessex, "far more than I deserve. The kindness shown me by every one at the Tower hath been a source of the deepest happiness to me."
"Nay! if I could . . ." began Mary impulsively.
Then she checked herself, determined not to let emotion get the better of her, ere she had told him all that she wished to say.
"My lord of Wessex," she resumed more firmly, "will you try to think that you are before a sincere and devoted friend; not before your Queen, but beside a woman who hath naught so much at heart as . . . your happiness? . . . Will you try?"
"The effort will not be great," he replied with a smile. "Your Majesty's kindness hath oft shamed me ere this."
"Then, if you value my friendship, my lord," rejoined Mary vehemently, "give me some assurance that to-morrow, before your judges and your peers, you will refute this odious charge which is brought against you."
"I crave Your Majesty's most humble pardon," said Wessex. "I have made confession of the crime imputed to me and can refute nothing."
"Nay, my lord, this is madness. You, the most gallant gentleman in England, you, to have done a deed so foul as would shame the lowest churl! Bah!" she added, with a bitter laugh, "'twere a grim farce, if it were not so terrible a tragedy!"
"Nay! not a tragedy, Your Majesty. Better men than I have made a failure of their lives. So I pray you, think no more of me."
"Think no more of you, dear lord," said Mary, with an infinity of reproach in her voice. "Ah me, I think of naught else since that awful night when they came and told me that you . . ."