er room and enjoin
silence upon her."

But at this moment the king was wholly inaccessible to any other
feelings than those of anger and delight in blood.

He indignantly repelled Catharine, and without moving his sharp,
penetrating look from the young maiden, he said in a quick, hollow tone:
"Let her alone; let her speak; let no one dare to interrupt her!"

Catharine, trembling with anxiety and inwardly hurt at the harsh manner
of the king, retired with a sigh to the embrasure of one of the windows.

Anne Askew had not noticed what was going on about her. She remained
in that state of exaltation which cares for no consequences and which
trembles before no danger. She would at this moment have gone to the
stake with cheerful alacrity, and she almost longed for this blessed
martyrdom.

"Speak, Anne Askew, speak!" commanded the king. "Tell me, do you know
what the countess, for whose pardon you are beseeching me, has done?
Know you why those four men were sent to the stake?"

"I do know, King Henry, by the wrath of God," said the maiden, with
burning passionateness. "I know why you have sent the noble countess to
the slaughter-house, and why you will exercise no mercy toward her. She
is of noble, of royal blood, and Cardinal Pole is her son. You would
punish the son through the mother, and because you cannot throttle the
cardinal, you murder his mother."

"Oh, you are a very knowing child!" cried the king, with an inhuman,
ironical laugh. "You know my most secret thoughts and my most hidden
feelings. Without doubt you are a good papist, since the death of the
popish countess fills you with such heart-rending grief. Then you must
confess, at the least, that it is right to burn the four heretics!"

"Heretics!" exclaimed Anne, enthusiastically, "call you heretics those
noble men who go gladly and boldly to death for their convictions
and their faith? King Henry! King Henry! Woe to you if these men are
condemned as heretics! They alone are the faithful, they are the true
servants of God. They have freed themselves from human supremacy, and as
you would not recognize the pope, so they will not recognize you as head
of the Church! God alone, they say, is Lord of the Church and Master
of their consciences, and who can be presumptuous enough to call them
criminals?"

"I!" exclaimed Henry the Eighth, in a powerful tone. "I dare do it. I
say that they are heretics, and that I will destroy them, will tread
them all beneat