“You believe—you think so! Well, perhaps not; and yet I implore you! Undoubtedly I am only a woman; I can do nothing at all; I am only Margaret!”
And a gleam shot from her eyes.
Sir Thomas regarded her, overwhelmed with anguish and despair. He took her by the arm and led her far away from the clerk, toward the
large and only window, looking out on the gloomy and narrow back yard. “Come,” he said, “let me see you display more courage; do not add to the anguish that already fills my soul! Margaret, look up to heaven.” And he raised his right hand toward the firmament, of which they could see but the smallest space. “Have these men, my daughter, the power to deprive us of our abode up there? Whatever afflictions may befall us here on earth, one day we shall be reunited there in eternity. Then, Margaret, we shall have no more chains, no more prisons, no more separations. Why, then, should you grieve, since you are immortal? What signify the years that roll by and are cast behind us, more than a cloud of dust by which we are for a moment enveloped? If my life was to be extinguished, if you were to cease to exist, then, yes, my despair would be unlimited; but we live, and we shall live for ever! We shall meet again, whatever may be the fate that attends me, whatever may be the road I am forced to follow. Death—ah! well, what is death? A change of life. Listen to me, Margaret: the present is nothing; the future is everything! Yes, I prefer the gloom of the prison to the brilliancy of the throne; all the miseries of this place to the delights of the universe, if they must be purchased at the cost of my soul’s salvation. Cease, then, to weep for me. If I am imprisoned here, it is only what He who called me out of nothing has permitted; and were I at liberty to leave, I would not do so unless it were his will. Know, then, my daughter, that I am calm and perfectly resigned to be here, since God so wills it. Return home now; see that nothing goes wrong there. I appoint you in my place,
without, at the same time, elevating you above your mother; and rest assured that your father will endure everything with joy and submission, not because of the justice of men, but because of that of God!”
Margaret listened to her father without replying. She knew well that she would not be permitted to remain in the prison, and yet she so much wished it.
“No,” she exclaimed at last, “I do not wish to be thus resigned! It is very easy for you to talk, it is nothing for me to listen; but as for me, I am on the verge of life. Without you, for me life has no longer the least attraction! Let them take mine when they take yours! It is the same thing; they owe it to the king. He so thirsts for blood that it will not do to rob him of one drop. Have you not betrayed him? Well! I am a traitor also; let him avenge himself, then; let him take his revenge; let him pick my bones, since he tears my heart. I am you; let him devour me also. Write my name on your register,” she continued, suddenly turning toward the clerk, as if convinced that the reasons she had given could not be answered. “Come, friend, good-fortune to you—two prisoners instead of one! Come, write; you write so well! Margaret More, aged eighteen years, guilty of high treason!”
The clerk made no reply.
“Is there anything lacking?” said Margaret.
“But, damsel,” he replied, placing his pen behind his ear with an air of indecision, “I cannot do that; you have not been accused. If you are an accomplice and have some revelations to make, you must so declare before the court.”