“It is I,” replied Cavendish, still remaining behind the curtain, and who endeavored in silence to conceal his tears.
“How are you now?” said Wolsey.
“Well, my dear lord, if your grace was well also,” responded the faithful servant.
“Ah! my dear friend,” replied the cardinal, “as for me, I am very sick. I am rapidly approaching my end; but what most distresses me is to have nothing to leave you, and not to be able to assure you of a subsistence.”
“Do not trouble yourself about that,” said this devoted servant,
who approached and took the trembling hand of the dying man; “in a few days you will be better, and we shall not lose you.”
“What time is it?” said Wolsey.
“Midnight.”
“Midnight!” replied the archbishop. “How short the time is! Before eight o’clock I shall have to leave this world. God calls me to himself, and I can remain no longer with you. Monsieur Vincent,” he continued after a moment’s silence—“Monsieur Vincent, say to the king that it was my intention to have left him all my property; but he has himself deprived me of that pleasure, since they have seized, by his orders, everything that I possessed.”
On hearing his name called, Monsieur Vincent hurried to the bedside; but at these last words he shook his head in token of incredulity and impatience. He was an employé of the king’s treasury, and his heart was as hard as the coin he had charge of.