"The Bishop of Arras----" the priest repeated firmly.
"I would he were hung with his own tapestry!" retorted the Duke, with a brutal laugh.
"Heaven forbid!" replied the ecclesiastic, his pale face reddening and his eyes darting baleful glances at me. But he took the hint, and henceforth said no more of the Bishop. Instead, he continued smoothly, "Your highness has, of course, considered the danger--the danger, I mean, of provoking neighbors so powerful by shielding this lady and making her cause your own. You will remember, sir----"
"I will remember Innspruck!" roared the Duke, in a rage, "where the Emperor, ay, and your everlasting Bishop too, fled before a handful of Protestants, like sheep before wolves. A fig for your Emperor! I never feared him young, and I fear him less now that he is old and decrepit and, as men say, mad. Let him get to his watches, and you to your prayers. If there were not this table between us, I would pull your ears, Master Churchman!"
* * * * *
"But tell me," I asked Master Bertie as I stood beside his couch an hour later, "how did the Duchess manage it? I gathered from something you or she said, a short time back, that you had no influence with the Duke of Cleves."
"Not quite that," he answered. "My wife and the late Duke of Suffolk had much to do with wedding the Prince's sister to King Henry, thirteen--fourteen years back, is it? And so far we might have felt confident of his protection. But the marriage turned out ill, or turned out short, and Queen Anne of Cleves was divorced. And--well, we felt a little less confident on that account, particularly as he has the name of a headstrong, passionate man."
"Heaven keep him in it!" I said, smiling. "But you have not told me yet what happened."
"The Duchess was still asleep this morning, fairly worn out, as you may suppose, when a great noise awoke her. She got up and went to Dymphna, and learned it was the Duke's trumpets. Then she went to the window, and, seeing few people in the streets to welcome him, inquired why this was. Dymphna broke down at that, and told her what was happening to you, and that you were to die at that very hour. She went out straightway, without covering her head,--you know how impetuous she is,--and flung herself on her knees in the mud before the Duke's horse as he entered. He knew her, and the rest you can guess."
Can guess? Ah, what happiness it was! Outside, the sun fell hotly on the steep red roofs, with their rows of casements, and on the sleepy square, in which knots of people still lingered, talking of the morning's events. I could see below me the guard which Duke William, shrewdly mistrusting the Sub-dean, had posted in front of the house, nominally to do the Duchess honor. I could hear in the next room the cheerful voices of my friends. What happiness it was to live! What happiness to be loved! How very, very good and beautiful and glorious a world, seemed the world to me on that old May morning in that quaint German town which we had entered so oddly!