id not answer immediately, but sat with his eyes fixed, grave
and pondering. The fanatical priest had gone too far; and, without being
aware of it, it was he himself who was that very instant accusing the
king.

Earl Douglas felt this. He read in the king's face that he was just then
in one of those moments of contrition which sometimes came over him when
his soul held involuntary intercourse with itself. It was necessary to
arouse the sleeping tiger and point out to him some prey, so as to make
him again bloodthirsty.

"It would be proper if Cranmer preached only Christian love," said he.
"Then would he be only a faithful servant of his Lord, and a follower
of his king. But he gives to the world an abominable example of a
disobedient and perfidious servant; he denies the truth of the six
articles, not in words, but in deeds. You have ordered that the priests
of the Church remain single. Now, then, the Archbishop of Canterbury is
married!"

"Married!" cried the king, his visage glowing with rage. "Ah, I will
chastise him, this transgressor of my holy laws! A minister of the
Church, a priest, whose whole life should be naught but an exhibition of
holiness, an endless communion with God, and whose high calling it is
to renounce fleshly lusts and earthly desires! And he is married! I will
make him feel the whole weight of my royal anger! He shall learn from
his own experience that the king's justice is inexorable, and that in
every case he smites the head of the sinner, be he who he may!"

"Your majesty is the embodiment of wisdom and justice," said Douglas,
"and your faithful servants well know, if the royal justice is sometimes
tardy in smiting guilty offenders, this happens not through your will,
but through your servants who venture to stay the arm of justice."

"When and where has this happened?" asked Henry; and his face flushed
with rage and excitement. "Where is the offender whom I have not
punished? Where in my realm lives a being who has sinned against God or
his king, and whom I have not dashed to atoms?"

"Sire," said Gardiner solemnly, "Anne Askew is yet alive."

"She lives to mock at your wisdom and to scoff at your holy creed!"
cried Wriothesley.

"She lives, because Bishop Cranmer wills that she should not die," said
Douglas, shrugging his shoulders. The king broke out into a short, dry
laugh. "Ah, Cranmer wills not that Anne Askew die!" said he, sneering.
"He wills not that this girl, who has so f