Humfrey could but walk away, grieved that his power of bearing intelligence or alleviation to the prisoner had been forfeited, and that he should probably not even take leave of her. Was she to be left to all the insults that the malice of her persecutor could devise? Yet it was not exactly malice. Paulett would have guarded her life from assassination with his own, though chiefly for his own sake, and, as he said, for that of "saving his poor posterity from so foul a blot;" but he could not bear, as he told Sir Drew Drury, to see the Popish, bloodthirsty woman sit queening it so calmly; and when he tore down her cloth of state, and sat down in her presence with his hat on, he did not so much intend to pain the woman, Mary, as to express the triumph of Elizabeth and of her religion. Humfrey believed his service over, and began to occupy himself with putting his clothes together, while considering whether to seek his father in London or to go home. After about an hour, he was summoned to the hall, where he expected to have found Sir Amias Paulett ready to give him his discharge. He found, however, only Sir Drew Drury, who thus accosted him—"Young man, you had better return to your duty. Sir Amias is willing to overlook what passed this morning."
"I thank you, sir, but I am not aware of having done aught to need forgiveness," said Humfrey.
"Come, come, my fair youth, stand not on these points. 'Tis true my good colleague hath an excess of zeal, and I could wish he could have found it in his heart to leave the poor lady these marks of dignity that hurt no one. I would have no hand in it, and I am glad thou wouldst not. He knoweth that he had no power to require such service of thee. He will say no more, and I trust that neither wilt thou; for it would not be well to change warders at this time. Another might not be so acceptable to the poor lady, and I would fain save her all that I can."
Humfrey bowed, and thanked "him of milder mood," nor was any further notice taken of this hasty dismissal.
When next he had to enter the Queen's apartments, the absence of all the tokens of her royal rank was to him truly a shock, accustomed as he had been, from his earliest childhood, to connect them with her, and knowing what their removal signified.
Mary, who was writing, looked up as, with cap in hand, he presented himself on one knee, his head bowed lower than ever before, perhaps to hide the tear that had sprung to his eye at sight of her pale, patient countenance.
"How now, sir?" she said. "This obeisance is out of place to one already dead in law. Don your bonnet. There is no queen here for an Englishman."
"Ah! madam, suffer me. My reverence cannot but be greater than ever," faltered Humfrey from his very heart, his words lost in the kiss he printed on the hand she granted him.
Mary bent "her gray discrowned head," crowned in his eyes as the Queen of Sorrows, and said to Marie de Courcelles, who stood behind her, "Is it not true, ma mie, that our griefs have this make-weight, namely, that they prove to us whose are the souls whose generosity is above all price! And what saith thy good father, my Humfrey?"
He had not ventured on bringing the letter into the apartments, but he repeated most of the substance of it, without, however, greatly raising the hopes of the Queen, though she was gratified that her cause was not neglected either by her son or by her brother-in-law.