'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.
'God help you, be it on your head,' the woman cried out, 'that I speak before the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. I would not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!'
The Lady Mary's hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from her opened fingers jarred on the hard floor.
'Merciful God!' she said. 'Have I such a father?'
'It was the King!' the woman said. 'His Highness came to life when he heard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than she reported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of a marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.'
'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way to tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother's confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!'
'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye wot—better than I did before—what this King is. I tell you—and I swear it——'
She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open. The Queen was moving towards her.
She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the air, but her head was erect.
'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!'