out of his memory. The girl will not last long-she is a little shallow piece, all giggles and pretty airs, but by then Anne will be fresh matter to him again and she will have kept him in her party."

"But the girl-" the pitying heart of Mary Wyatt protested.

“Oh, the girl!" Helen swept that pity summarily away. "She will not break her heart over the matter; she is tickled nigh to death at the notice and fuss she is receiving. She'll have her day and marry some young gallant Norris, our handsome widower, has an eye on her now. She is a soft piece, like Mary Carey."

Mary Carey, Anne's sister, a widow for some six years now, had lately married again and there was some haste to have the ceremony catch up with her good name if indeed she had any left.

"Whom was't she married?" Mary Wyatt murmured after a pause.

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Some officer an unknown, for she hath a talent for obscurity that Anne doth not share. Mary is all whispers and twilight; Anne is for the sunshine."

Mary looked thoughtful; but it was not at this summing up. She was considering Helen gravely.

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"I have oft wondered at you, Helen," she said gently, that your own heart hath never been touched. You speak ever so disdainfully of the affection's weakness. You seem to stand and look on. I have thought that perhaps some man would some day change you, but you are never pricked."

Helen laughed harshly. "Perhaps I am in secret nursing mine own love wound," she mocked. Perchance an undying desire possesseth me. Perchance I have given all in vain. Is not that a tale to bring your lamb's tears?

Mary shook her head wisely.

"Nay, then, you would be different," she said. "You would have more compassion on the sufferings of others."

"Would I?" said Helen, with her sharp-edged smile. Helen had spoken truly. Margaret Shelton had been a tool, a bright decoy, keeping Henry in the ranks of his wife's friends. That Anne should stoop to employ such means, that her pride should lend itself to such assistance, showed a strange change from the Anne of other days.

She bore herself as proudly and lightly as ever, her wit struck as audacious sparks, her laughter rang as free, but it was laughter with a defiant echo, and the big eyes that looked out from the thinned oval of her cheeks were bright with a feverish fire. She was a person constantly on the alert, constantly expecting some summons, on the qui vive of attention. When she was in her rooms or believed herself alone in the gardens, she sat for long time with gripped hands and locked lips, her eyes fixed, turning over plan after plan in her restless mind.

She carried anxiety about with her, like a fox in her vitals.

And then came the day when she drew the freest breath that she had known in years, when she felt suddenly like a prisoner who steps out-of-doors, his chains undone, when it seemed to her that at last the corner of her long lane had been turned and that pinnacle which she had been at such trouble to attain was finally hers in undisputed possession. The woman whom she had displaced, whose life had been one constant strife with her and hers, ceased suddenly to be. She had been ailing for some time; so near her end did she believe herself at one time to be that Chapuis, the Spanish Ambassador,

rode out and spent four days with her. But as she then appeared so recovered and in such cheerful spirits he had returned. But two days later she failed again, fell into a heavy doze, and on a Friday morning, the seventh of January, 1536, she passed peacefully away.

Catherine of Aragon was gone.

Anne said it over and over to herself, with almost incredulous gladness. She was gone. Never in her life had Anne known such a sensation of relief; by its very poignancy she appreciated how keen had been her apprehensions. She remembered how welcome once had been the news of Wolsey's death; that emotion, by the side of this intensity, appeared childish. What had she known then of actual fear and trouble, she asked rather scornfully of that other Anne she summoned to vision. She recalled a girl, proud-eyed, impatient for the crown, and she shook her head contemptuously at that girl's cares and crosses. What a slight, inexperienced creature she was, after all! How little she knew life, life as this older woman knew it. There were only nine years between those selves, but nine times nine of bitter experience. She had never thought of herself as very inexperienced, very young and childlike; indeed she had felt a superb confidence in her own immense adequacy to all intricacies, but now she looked back on that younger Anne as something pitiably fresh and virginal, dancing with sun-dazzled eyes. How she had striven! How she had suffered! How she had-sunk. . . . She had done things from which that light-hearted Anne would have shrunk in horror. She thought of Margaret Shelton . . . and of herself and Henry. . . . Well, the worst was over now. That other who had disputed her queenship and her wifehood was gone the way there is no returning and her shadow would rest no more upon that throne. She

was undisputed queen. Surely, now, the powers would make no more difficulties about their marriage.

Starting up, Anne gave breathless orders to her ladies. They should wear their prettiest gowns; no mourning, yellow the color of rejoicing.

"We will have no lies here, she said stoutly, clasping on her jewels.

Henry, too, when he came to dine with her was in fine attire. He was jocular and called for more than even his usual allowance of wine; in a burst of uproarious relief he toasted Catherine's progress through hell.

A sudden reaction swept through Anne. She sat still, her glass untasted. She had never been very close to death, but its solemn mystery had made a strong appeal to her imagination. At Henry's words she had a sudden vision of that silent room at Kimbolton where the Spanish women were on their knees, and of the sheeted mass upon the bed. Clearly as if it were before her she saw that scene. Somewhere a bell tolled slowly, dismally, and she could not have told whether it were ringing in truth or in this fancied scene. She remembered, not seeking the memory, that the man who offered this toast had been the husband of that sheeted dead, had kissed her lips, had clasped her children. Like an icy wave a swift and terrible impression went through her. She shuddered, the room darkened and seemed to totter about her. Her wine glass dropped and fell, pouring the wine like blood in a thin stream; she swayed and her ladies kept her from falling. In an instant she opened her eyes. Henry had come swiftly about the table and was bending over her. She received from him a horrible impression of reddened flesh and liquor-laden breath, of something panting and soulless and wolfish. She tried to smile, but she shivered.