tures. For they
had shamefully stolen from me a letter which Anne Askew, in the distress
of her heart, had addressed to me; and they showed this letter to you in
order to cast suspicion on me and accuse me to you. But your noble heart
repelled the suspicion; and now their wrath fell again on Anne Askew,
and she must suffer, because they did not find me punishable. She must
atone for having dared to write to me. They worked matters with you
so that she was put to the rack. But when my husband gave way to their
urging, yet the noble king remained still awake in him. 'Go,' said he,
'rack her and kill her; but see first whether she will not recant.'"

Henry looked astonished into her noble and defiant face. "Do you know
that?" asked he. "And yet we were alone, and no human being present. Who
could tell you that?"

"When man is no longer able to help, then God undertakes!" said
Catharine solemnly. "It was God who commanded me to go to Anne Askew,
and try whether I could save her. And I went. But though the wife of
a noble and great king, I am still but a weak and timid woman. I was
afraid to tread this gloomy and dangerous path alone; I needed a strong
manly arm to lean upon; and so John Heywood lent me his."

"And you were really with Anne Askew," interposed the king,
thoughtfully--"with that hardened sinner, who despised mercy, and in the
stubbornness of her soul would not be a partaker of the pardon that I
offered her?"

"My lord and husband," said the queen, with tears in her eyes, "she whom
you have just accused stands even now before the throne of the Lord, and
has received from her God the forgiveness of her sins! Therefore, do you
likewise pardon her; and may the flames of the stake, to which yesterday
the noble virgin body of this girl was bound, have consumed also the
wrath and hatred which had been kindled in your heart against her! Anne
Askew passed away like a saint; for she forgave all her enemies and
blessed her tormentors."

"Anne Askew was a damnable sinner, who dared resist the command of her
lord and king!" interrupted Bishop Gardiner, looking daggers at her.

"And dare you maintain, my lord, that you at that time fulfilled the
commands of your royal master simply and exactly?" asked Catharine. "Did
you keep within them with respect to Anne Askew? No! I say; for the king
had not ordered you to torture her; he had not bidden you to lacerate in
blasphemous wrath a noble human form, and distort that lik