stood aside with a low bow. The men who had sat to judge me rose; only the King’s favorite kept his seat. With Lady Wyatt’s arm about her, the King’s ward passed between the lines of standing gentlemen to the door, there hesitated, turned, and, facing them with I know not what of pride and shame, wistfulness of entreaty and noble challenge to belief in the face and form that were of all women’s most beautiful, curtsied to them until her knee touched the floor. She was gone, and the sunlight with her.

When I turned upon that shameless lord where he sat in his evil beauty, with his honor dead before him, men came hastily in between. I put them aside with a laugh. I had but wanted to look at him. I had no sword, — already he lay beneath my challenge, — and words are weak things.