"You must wait here, Mistress Constance," said he, having led her into the vestibule, which was full of yeomen and grooms, "while I go and tell the right reverend father the lord cardinal that I have brought you."
"Here!" exclaimed Constance, casting her eyes around; "surely you do not mean me to wait here amongst the servants?"
"Why, where would you go?" demanded he, roughly: "I've no other place to put you. Wait here, wait here, and mind you don't run away again."
Constance could support no more, and covering her face with her hands, she burst into a violent flood of tears. At that moment a voice that she knew struck her ear. "This to my cousin, sir!" exclaimed Lord Darby, who had heard what passed as he descended a flight of stairs which led away to the left; "this to my cousin, Sir John Hardacre! You would do better to jump off the donjon of Rochester Castle than to leave her here with lacqueys and footboys."
"And why should I not?" demanded the soldier, his eyes flashing fire. "Mind your own affairs, my Lord Darby, and let me mind mine."
"You are an unfeeling old villain, sir!" answered the earl, passing him and taking Constance by the hand. "Yes, sir! stare your fill! I say you are an unfeeling villain, and neither knight nor gentleman."
The soldier laid his hand upon his sword and drew it half out of its sheath. "Knock him down! knock him down!" cried a dozen voices. "The precincts of the court! out with him! Have his hand off!" Sir John Hardacre thrust his weapon back into the sheath, gazing, however, grimly around, as if he would fain have used it upon some one.
"Your brutal violence, sir," said Lord Darby, "will bring upon you, if you heed not, a worse punishment than I can inflict; yet you will not find me, in a proper place, unwilling to give you a lesson on what is due to a lady. Come, Constance, I will lead you to her highness, where you will meet, I am sure, a kind reception. You, sir, do your errand to my lord cardinal, who shall be informed by me of your noble and knightly treatment of the Lady de Grey."
Thus saying, he led Constance through a long corridor to an ante-chamber, wherein stood two of the queen's pages. Here Lord Darby paused, and sent one of the attendants to request an audience, taking the opportunity of the time they waited to soothe the mind of his fair cousin by informing her of all that had passed in her absence, and assuring her that the queen had ever been her warmest defender.
All the news that he gave her, yof course, took a heavy weight from Constance's mind; and drying her eyes, she congratulated him gladly on his approaching marriage, and would fain, very fain, have asked if he could give her any such consolatory information in regard to Darnley; but the earl had never once mentioned his name, and she knew not how to begin the subject herself. While considering, and hesitating whether to ask boldly or not, the queen's page returned and ushered them to her presence. Constance was still much agitated, and even the kind and dignified sweetness, the motherly tenderness, with which Katherine received her--a tenderness which she had not known for so long--overcame her, and she wept as much as if she had been most unhappy.