He presented Catharine his hand, and with difficulty, and yet with a
smiling countenance, conducted her to the door. As she stopped, and,
looking him in the eye with an expression inquiring and anxious, opened
her lips to speak to him, he made an impatient gesture with his hand,
and a dark frown gathered on his brow.

"It is late," said he, hastily, "and we have business of state."

Catharine did not venture to speak; she bowed in silence and left the
room. The king watched her with sullen brow and angry looks. Then he
turned round to Gardiner.

"Now," asked he, "what do you think of the queen?"

"I think," said Gardiner, so slowly and so deliberately that each word
had time to penetrate the king's sensitive heart like the prick of a
needle--"I think that she does not deem them criminals that call the
holy book which you have written a work of hell; and that she has a
great deal of sympathy for those heretics who will not acknowledge your
supremacy."

"By the holy mother, I believe she herself would speak thus, and avow
herself among my enemies, if she were not my wife!" cried the king, in
whose heart rage began already to seethe like lava in a volcano.

"She does it already, although she is your wife, sire! She imagines
her exalted position renders her unamenable, and protects her from
your righteous wrath; therefore she does what no one else dares do, and
speaks what in the mouth of any other would be the blackest treason."

"What does she? and what says she?" cried the king. "Do not hesitate to
tell me, your highness. It behooves me well to know what my wife does
and says."

"Sire, she is not merely the secret patroness of heretics and reformers,
but she is also a professor of their faith. She listens to their false
doctrine with eager mind, and receives the cursed priests of this sect
into her apartments, in order to hear their fanatical discourse and
hellish inspiration. She speaks of these heretics as true believers and
Christians; and denominates Luther the light that God has sent into
the world to illuminate the gloom and falsehood of the Church with the
splendor of truth and love--that Luther, sire, who dared write you such
shameful and insulting letters, and ridiculed in such a brutal manner
your royalty and your wisdom."

"She is a heretic; and when you say that, you say everything!" screamed
the king. The volcano was ripe for an eruption, and the seething lava
must at last have an outlet. "Yes, she