The note was handed to Henry, who read aloud as follows:
"To Master Charles Brandon":
"Greeting—Soon you will be at liberty; perhaps ere this is to your hand. Surely would I not leave you long in prison. I go to Windsor at once, there to live in the hope that I may see you speedily.
"MARY."
"What is this?" cried Henry. "My sister writing to Brandon? God's death! My Lord of Buckingham, the suspicions you whispered in my ear may have some truth. We will let this fellow remain in Newgate, and allow our good people of London to take their own course with him."
Buckingham went to Windsor next day and told Mary that arrangements had been made the night before for Brandon's escape, and that he had heard that Brandon had left for New Spain.
Mary thanked the duke, but had no smiles for any one. Her supply was exhausted.
She remained at Windsor nursing her love for the sake of the very pain it brought her, and dreading the battle for more than life itself which she knew she should soon be called upon to fight.
At times she would fall into one of her old fits of anger because Brandon had not come to see her before he left, but soon the anger melted into tears, and the tears brought a sort of joy when she thought that he had run away from her because he loved her. After Brandon's defense of her in Billingsgate, Mary had begun to see the whole situation differently, and everything was changed. She still saw the same great distance between them as before, but with this difference, she was looking up now. Before that event he had been plain Charles Brandon, and she the Princess Mary. She was the princess still, but he was a demi-god. No mere mortal, thought she, could be so brave and strong and generous and wise; and above all, no mere mortal could vanquish odds of four to one. In the night she would lie on Jane's arm, and amid smothered sobs, would softly talk of her lover, and praise his beauty and perfections, and pour her pathetic little tale over and over again into Jane's receptive ear and warm responsive heart; and Jane answered with soft little kisses that would have consoled Niobe herself. Then Mary would tell how the doors of her life, at the ripe age of eighteen, were closed forever and forever, and that her few remaining years would be but years of waiting for the end. At other times she would brighten, and repeat what Brandon had told her about New Spain; how fortune's door was open there to those who chose to come, and how he, the best and bravest of them all, would surely win glory and fortune, and then return to buy her from her brother Henry with millions of pounds of yellow gold. Ah, she would wait! She would wait! Like Bayard she placed her ransom at a high figure, and honestly thought herself worth it. And so she was—to Brandon, or rather had been. But at this particular time the market was down, as you will shortly hear.
So Mary remained at Windsor and grieved and wept and dreamed, and longed that she might see across the miles of billowy ocean to her love! her love! her love! Meanwhile Brandon had his trial in secret down in London, and had been condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered for having saved to her more than life itself.