y to you that I wish with my whole heart the queen may choose you
for her confessor and spiritual director, and to assure you that, should
this be the case, there will not be in my soul, on that account, the
least rancor, or the slightest dissatisfaction. I shall fully comprehend
it, if her majesty chooses the distinguished and eminent Bishop of
Winchester as her confessor, and the esteem and admiration which I
entertain for you can only be enhanced thereby. In confirmation of this,
permit me to offer you my hand." He presented his hand to Gardiner, who,
however, took it reluctantly and but for a moment.

"Your highness is very noble, and at the same time a very subtle
diplomatist, for you only wish in an adroit and ingenious way to give
me to understand how I am to act should the queen choose you for her
spiritual director. But that she will do so, you know as well as I. It
is, therefore, for me only a humiliation which etiquette imposes when
she compels me to stand here and wait to see whether I shall be chosen,
or contemptuously thrust aside."

"Why will you look at matters in so unfriendly a light?" said Cranmer,
gently. "Wherefore will you consider it a mark of contempt, if you are
not chosen to an office to which, indeed, neither merit nor worthiness
can call us, but only the personal confidence of a young woman?"

"Oh! you admit that I shall not be chosen?" cried Gardiner, with a
malicious smile.

"I have already told you that I am wholly uninformed as to the queen's
wish, and I think it is known that the Bishop of Canterbury is wont to
speak the truth."

"Certainly that is known, but it is known also that Catharine Parr was
a warm admirer of the Bishop of Canterbury; and now that she has
gained her end and become queen, she will make it her duty to show her
gratitude to him."

"You would by that insinuate that I have made her queen. But I assure
your highness, that here also, as in so many other matters which relate
to myself, you are falsely informed."

"Possibly!" said Gardiner, coldly. "At any rate, it is certain that the
young queen is an ardent advocate of the abominable new doctrine which,
like the plague, has spread itself from Germany over all Europe and
scattered mischief and ruin through all Christendom. Yes, Catharine
Parr, the present queen, leans to that heretic against whom the Holy
Father at Rome has hurled his crushing anathema. She is an adherent of
the Reformation."

"You forget," sai