'They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in her agony cried out, "Virtuous! virtuous!" till her senses went.'
Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees.
'Let me go, let me go,' she moaned. 'I will not speak before the Queen. I had been as loyal as Margot Poins.... But I will not speak before the Queen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But ... I will not——'
She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and ran to the door. But there she cried out—
'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath.
'It is upon you if I speak,' she said. 'Merciful God, do not bid me speak before the Queen!'
She held out her hands as if she had been praying.
'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fled here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! Merciful God! Bid me not to speak.'
'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.
The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharine stood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, for she thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears nor eyes.