“No, no,” said the queen, hastily. “I have come to save her, and God will assist me to do it. I cannot spare her slumbers any longer. I must wake her.”
She bent down and pressed a kiss on the young girl’s forehead. “Anne, awake; I am here! I will save you and set you free. Anne, Anne, awake!”
She slowly raised her large, brilliant eyes, and nodded a salutation to Catharine.
“Catharine Parr!” said she, with a smile. “I expected only a letter from you; and have you come yourself?”
“The guards have been dismissed, and the turnkeys changed, Anne; for our correspondence had been discovered.”
“Ah, you will write to me no more in future! And yet your letters were my only comfort,” sighed Anne Askew. “But that also is well; and perhaps it will only make the path that I have to tread still easier. The heart may move its pinions freely and easily, and return to God.”
“Hear me, Anne, hear,” said Catharine in a low and hurried voice. “A terrible danger threatens you! The king has given orders to move you, by means of the rack, to recant.”
“Well, and what more?” asked Anne, with smiling face.
“Unfortunate, you know not what you are saying! You know not what fearful agonies await you! You know not the power of pains, which are perhaps still mightier than the spirit, and may overcome it.”
“And if I did know them now, what would it avail me?” asked Anne Askew. “You say they will put me to the rack. Well, then, I shall have to bear it, for I have no power to change their will.”