“I am ready,” said Margery again.
Her examiners looked surprised.
“Moreover,” continued the Abbot, in a softer tone than ever, “wit you that we can allow you no longer to have the charge and teaching of your son, who must needs be instructed in the true faith?”
The end of the reverend fathers was at length reached. The quiet words of the Abbot produced an effect which the furious abuse of the Archbishop had been unable to accomplish. A cry of mingled terror, anguish, and despair, broke from poor Margery’s lips.
“Ye could not—ye could not be so cruel!” she sobbed. “Take from me all I have in this world—comfort, freedom, yea, life—only leave me my child!”
“Thou seest what thou hast brought on thyself!” said Arundel. “How can we, being the ministers of God His truth, suffer the mind of yon innocent child to be poisoned with like evil doctrine?”
“Doth God part the child from the mother?” faltered Margery. “This is none of His doing. My darling! my darling!”
Lord Marnell pitied his wife. Her agony touched all that was soft and gentle in his not too soft heart.
“Well, well, Madge!” he said, kindly; “I will see that thy child is not taken from thee, if thou wilt obey these reverend fathers in confessing of thine error, and wilt humbly beg absolution at their hands.”
Margery looked up at her husband with an expression of unutterable gratitude beaming in her eyes—but the moment she heard his if, her face fell instantly.