"I have seen it, madam," said Richard, gravely, for he knew it as the
letter which had been traced on the child's shoulders.

"Ah, good Master Richard," she said, with a sweet and wistful
expression, looking up to his face in pleading, and changing to the
familiar pronoun, "thou likest not my charge, and I know that it is
hard on an upright man like thee to have all this dissembling thrust
on thee, but what can a poor captive mother do but strive to save her
child from an unworthy lot, or from captivity like her own? I ask
thee to say nought, that is all, and to shelter the maid, who hath
been as thine own daughter, yet a little longer. Thou wilt not deny
me, for her sake."

"Madam, I deny nothing that a Christian man and my Queen's faithful
servant may in honour do. Your Grace has the right to choose your
own daughter's lot, and with her I will deal as you direct me. But,
madam, were it not well to bethink yourself whether it be not a
perilous and a cruel policy to hold out a bait to nourish hope in
order to bind to your service a foolish though a generous youth,
whose devotion may, after all, work you and himself more ill than
good?"

Mary looked a good deal struck, and waved back her two attendants,
who were both startled and offended at what Marie de Courcelles
described as the Englishman's brutal boldness.

"Silence, dear friends," said she. "Would that I had always had
counsellors who would deal with me with such honour and
disinterestedness. Then should I not be here."