QUEEN ELIZABETH. Belike you will, mistress. Have you bethought you
that I am like to have your head cut off as well?

THE DARK LADY. Will: save me. Oh, save me.

ELIZABETH. Save you! A likely savior, on my royal word! I had
thought this fellow at least an esquire; for I had hoped that even the
vilest of my ladies would not have dishonored my Court by wantoning
with a baseborn servant.

SHAKESPEAR. _[indignantly scrambling to his feet]_ Base-born! I, a
Shakespear of Stratford! I, whose mother was an Arden! baseborn! You
forget yourself, madam.

ELIZABETH. _[furious]_ S'blood! do I so? I will teach you--

THE DARK LADY. _[rising from her knees and throwing herself between
them]_ Will: in God's name anger her no further. It is death.
Madam: do not listen to him.

SHAKESPEAR. Not were it een to save your life, Mary, not to mention
mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my
family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor
bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for
trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but
it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those
bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing.

ELIZABETH. _[grimly]_ The son of your father shall learn his place
in the presence of the daughter of Harry the Eighth.