“Which he was not,” answered the King rather impatiently. “Would to Saint Edmund he had so been! It were then no marriage.”
The Archbishop made no reply in words, but drawing towards him a sheet of paper which lay upon the table, he slowly traced upon it a date some two months previous—the date of the Sunday before Constance’s marriage. The King watched him in equal silence, with knitted brows and set lips. Then the two conspirators’ eyes met.
“Could that be done?” asked the royal layman, under his breath.
“Is it not done, Sire?” calmly responded the priestly villain, pointing to the paper.
The King was silent for a minute; but, unprincipled as he was, his conscience was not quite so seared as that of Arundel.
“The end halloweth the means, trow?” he said inquiringly.
“All means be holy, Sire, where the end is the glory of God,” replied Arundel, with a hypocritical assumption of piety. “And the glory of God is the service and avancement of holy Church.”
Still Henry’s mind misgave him. His conscience appears at times to have tortured him in his later years, and he shrank from burdening it yet further.
“Father, if sin be herein, you must bear this burden!”
“I have borne heavier,” replied Arundel with a cynical smile.