prepared had never before been traced beneath her eyes to the same
vivid and ultimate effect.

"Help me, ye saints, but things are not at such a pass in this place!"
she said abruptly, but with weariness in her voice. "Yet sometimes I
know not. The Court is a city by itself, walled and moated, and hath a
life all its own. 'If there be found ten honest men within the city yet
will I save it,' saith the Lord. By my father's head, I would not risk
a finger on the hazard if this city, this Court of Elizabeth were set
'twixt the fire from Heaven and eternal peace. In truth, child, I would
lay me down and die in black disgust were it not that one might come
hereafter would make a very Sodom or Gomorrah of this land: and out
yonder--out in all my counties, where the truth of England is among my
poor burgesses, who die for the great causes which my nobles profess but
risk not their lives--out yonder all that they have won, and for which I
have striven, would be lost. . . . Speak on. I have not heard so
plain a tongue and so little guile these twenty years."

Angele continued, more courage in her voice. "In the midst of it all
came the wave of the new faith upon my mother. And before ill could fall
upon her from her foes, she died and was at rest. Then we returned to
Rouen, my father and I, and there we lived in peril, but in great
happiness of soul until the day of massacre. That night in Paris
we were given greatly of the mercy of God."

"You were there--you were in the massacre at Paris?"

In the house of the Duke of Langon, with whom was resting after a
hazardous enterprise, Michel de la Foret."