Lady Jane and Gardiner were standing, as if by accident, near the door.
“Well, have we attained our end there also?” asked Gardiner.
“We have attained it,” said Earl Douglas. “The duchess has accused her brother of a liaison with the queen. She has deposed that he sometimes leaves the palace by night, and does not return to it before morning. She has declared that for four nights she herself dogged her brother and saw him as he entered the wing of the castle occupied by the queen; and one of the queen’s maids has communicated to the duchess that the queen was not in her room on that night.”
“And the king listened to the accusation, and did not throttle you in his wrath!”
“He is just in that dull state of rage in which the lava that the crater will afterward pour forth, is just prepared. As yet all is quiet, but be sure there will be an eruption, and the stream of red-hot lava will busy those who have dared excite the god Vulcan.”
“And does he know about the rosette?” asked Lady Jane.
“He knows everything. And until that moment he will allow no one to suspect his wrath and fury. He says he will make the queen perfectly secure, in order to get into his hands thereby sure proof of her guilt. Well, we will furnish him this evidence; and hence it follows that the queen is inevitably lost.”
“But hark! The doors are opened, and the master of ceremonies comes to summon us to the golden gallery.”
“Just walk in,” muttered John Heywood, gliding along behind them. “I am still here; and I will be the mouse that gnaws the net in which you want to catch my noble-minded lioness.”