"Tell me, girl," he said with utmost calm and gentleness, lest he should scare again her poor, wandering wits, "tell me without any fear. . . . I am the Duke of Wessex and I saved thy life . . . then thou hadst the wish to warn me of some danger . . . and came to the Palace here . . . and my lord Cardinal tricked thee. . . . How?"
"I do not know," she said piteously, turning appealing, dog-like eyes upon him. "They dressed me up in fine clothes . . . and then . . . then . . . when I saw thee . . . and wished to speak with thee . . . he . . . the dark foreigner barred the way . . . and I know not how it happened . . ." she added, as a trembling suddenly seized her whole body, "he jeered at me . . . and . . . and I killed him!"
"'Twas thou, wench, who killed Don Miguel?" ejaculated the Queen, horrified. "Oh! . . ."
But Wessex only bent his head and murmured in the intensity of his misery—
"Heaven above me! . . . that I should have been so blind!"
"I killed him . . ." repeated Mirrab with strange persistence, "I killed him . . . he would not let me go to thee."
"A madwoman and a wanton," here protested the Cardinal with all the vigour at his command. "Surely Your Majesty will not believe this miserable creature's calumnies."
"No, my lord," replied Mary with quiet dignity, "we'll believe nothing until we have heard what Lady Ursula Glynde has to say. Lady Alicia," she added, turning to one of her maids-of-honour, "I pray you find the Lady Ursula. Tell her what has happened and bid her come to us."
In the meanwhile, however, Mirrab seemed to have become aware of the consequences of her vehement confession. Her wandering wits came slowly back to her. Terrified, she looked from one to the other of the grave faces which were fixed upon her.
"What will they do to me?" she murmured, turning appealing eyes on the one man whom she dared to trust.