--the Archbishop shivered within his robes--'the account and
retribution for these lies shall be to be paid. For well we know, you,
I, and all of us, that these be falsities and cozenings.'

'Marry,' Lascelles said, 'of this Queen it is now sufficiently proved
true.'

The Archbishop made as if he washed his hands.

'Why,' Lascelles said, 'what man shall believe it was by chance and
accident that she met her cousin on these moors? She is not a compass
that pointeth, of miraculous power, true North.'

'No good man shall believe what you do say,' the Archbishop cried out.

'But a multitude of indifferent will,' Lascelles answered.

'God help me,' the Archbishop said, 'what a devil you are that thus hold
out and hold out for ever hopes.'

'Why,' Lascelles said, 'I think you were well helped that day that I
came into your service. It was the Great Privy Seal that bade me serve
you and commended me.'

The Archbishop shivered at that name.

'What an end had Thomas Cromwell!' he said.

'Why, such an end shall not be yours whilst this King lives, so well he
loves you,' Lascelles answered.

The Archbishop stood upon his feet; he raised his hands above his head.

'Begone! Begone!' he cried. 'I will not be of your evil schemes.'

'Your Grace shall not,' Lascelles said very softly, 'if they miscarry.
But when it is proven to the hilt that this Queen is a very lewd
woman--and proven it shall be--your Grace may carry an accusation to the
King----'

Cranmer said--

'Never! never! Shall I come between the lion and his food?'

'It were better if your Grace would carry the accusation,' Lascelles
uttered nonchalantly, 'for the King will better hearken to you than to
any other. But another man will do it too.'

'I will not be of this plotting,' the Archbishop cried out. 'It is a
very wicked thing!' He looked round at the white Christ that, upon the
dark cross, bent anguished brows upon him. 'Give me strength,' he said.

'Why, your Grace shall not be of it,' Lascelles answered, 'until it is
proven in the eyes of your Grace--ay, and in the eyes of some of the
Papist Lords--as, for instance, her very uncle--that this Queen was
evil in her life before the King took her, and that she hath acted very
suspicious in the aftertime.'

'You shall not prove it to the Papist Lords,' Cranmer said. 'It is a
folly.'

He added vehemently--

'It is a wicked plot. It is a folly too. I will not be of it.'

'This is a very fortunate