“Upon all the counts!” repeated Pierre Gilles.
“What did he say?” cried Margaret, transfixed with expectation and terror. “My father guilty? No, never! Pierre Gilles, what did he say? Guilty? Oh! no, no. My father!”
The young girl pronounced this word so tenderly, with a cry so piercing, an accent of despair so heartrending, that Sir Thomas trembled from head to foot, and it seemed his soul was shaken to its very depths.
“In mercy take her away!” he said in a faint voice.
“Guilty!” repeated Margaret—“guilty! They have dared say it. Guilty! Then all is finished! He is lost, condemned! O cowardice! O horror! Guilty!”
And a change so horrible came over her features that Margaret was unrecognizable.
“Sir Thomas More guilty before God and before man!” she pursued with a smile of frightful bitterness, while her eyes remained dry. “Pierre Gilles, you have heard it; have I not told you? O ignoble creatures! Behold them, these bloody judges—this Cromwell, with his livid face, and envy corroding his heart; this Audley, vender of consciences; this Cranmer, renegade archbishop! No, you do not know them! There they are before your eyes, and they invoke the name of Almighty God! One day, yes, one day, we also will see them before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge—before that tribunal without appeal and without mercy—to receive the reward of perjury and of murder. May Heaven hear my cry; may my tears mount to the skies, and fall
back upon them to add new strength to the remorse which they have so long sought to tear from their hearts!”
“What woman is this,” said Cromwell, “who dares to disturb the court?”
“Nay, Master Cromwell,” replied More in a stifled voice, “pardon her! She is a child. Alas! you know her well.”