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errupted Wyat fiercely. "Right, cardinal--right. I will have vengeance--terrible vengeance!" "You shall. But I will not deceive you. You will purchase what you seek at the price of your own head." "I care not," replied Wyat. "All sentiments of love and loyalty are swallowed up by jealousy and burning hate. Nothing but blood can allay the fever that consumes me. Show me how to slay him!" "Him!" echoed the cardinal, in alarm and horror. "Wretch! would you kill your king? God forbid that I should counsel the injury of a hair of his head! I do not want you to play the assassin, Wyat," he added more calmly, "but the just avenger. Liberate the king from the thraldom of the capricious siren who enslaves him, and you will do a service to the whole country. A word from you--a letter--a token--will cast her from the king, and place her on the block. And what matter? The gory scaffold were better than Henry's bed." "I cannot harm her," cried Wyat distractedly. "I love her still, devotedly as ever. She was in my power yesterday, and without your aid, cardinal, I could have wreaked my vengeance upon her, if I had been so minded." "You were then in her chamber, as the king suspected?" cried Wolsey, with a look of exultation. "Trouble yourself no more, Sir Thomas. I will take the part of vengeance off your hands." "My indiscretion will avail you little, cardinal," replied Wyat sternly. "A hasty word proves nothing. I will perish on the rack sooner than accuse Anne Boleyn. I am a desperate man, but not so desperate as you suppose me. A moment ago I might have been led on, by the murderous and traitorous impulse that prompted me, to lift my hand against the king, but I never could have injured her." "You are a madman!" cried Wolsey impatiently, "and it is a waste of time to argue with you. I wish you good speed on your journey. On your return you will find Anne Boleyn Queen of England." "And you disgraced," rejoined Wyat, as, with a malignant and vindictive look, the cardinal quitted the chamber. Again left alone, Wyat fell into another fit of despondency from which he roused himself with difficulty, and went forth to visit the Earl of Surrey in the Round Tower. Some delay occurred before he could obtain access to the earl. The halberdier stationed at the entrance to the keep near the Norman Tower refused to admit him without the order of the officer in command of the tower, and as the latter was not in the way at
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