He sat down, and Master Sandys said gravely: “Men need not be courtiers to have known of a lady of great wealth and high birth, a ward of the King’s, and both beautiful and pure. I nor no man else, I think, ever heard aught of the Lady Jocelyn Leigh but what became a daughter of her line.”

A murmur of assent went round the circle. The Governor, leaning forward from his seat, his wife’s hand in his, gravely bent his head. “All this is known, lady,” he said courteously.

She did not answer; her eyes were upon the King’s favorite, and the circle waited with her.

“It is known,” said my lord.

She smiled proudly. “For so much grace, thanks, my lord,” she said, then addressed herself again to the Governor: