“He here!” cried the queen, overwhelmed with astonishment. And Catherine, a Spaniard and a mother, felt the hatred she had borne Wolsey revive in her soul with extreme violence. The feeling she had vainly sought to extinguish rekindled with renewed strength every time she received a new outrage, or when the name and conduct of the minister who had sacrificed her to his political views and interests was brought to her recollection.
A sudden tremor seized her.
“Wolsey here!” she repeated. “No matter where I go, this man follows me!… Here!” she said again.
“Yes, madam,” replied the father abbot, “here, dying, but more worthy of pity than hatred; he weeps, he bemoans his past life, he implores God’s mercy. It is sufficient to see him to be touched with compassion. For two days we have watched him by turns; he has not ceased to pray God, and I know that to see you will be a great consolation to him.”
“See him?” replied the queen. “No! oh! no, never. God forgive him the injury he has done me; but I will never see him.”
“Will Queen Catherine forget the charity of Jesus Christ?” replied the father abbot in a severe tone. “Can that virtue be more than a vain appearance which is stranded by coming in contact with a resentment,
just, perhaps, but none the less criminal?… I conjure you, madam,” he continued, falling on his knees before the queen, “refuse not to see him. Already, without doubt, he knows that you are here. He desires to see you and ask your forgiveness. All of our brothers ask it with him.”
Catherine remained silent, but she advanced a step forward, which the father accepted as a mute consent; and passing immediately before her, he conducted her into the chamber where Wolsey was lying.
She advanced to the middle of the room, and was struck by the spectacle presented to her view. Cavendish supported the dying man in his arms, and wiped the cold sweat from his face, now as white as the sheet on which he lay. A convulsive movement agitated occasionally his extended limbs, and it was from that alone they saw that life was not yet extinct.
Catherine approached at once, and remained standing in silence, in the face of this enemy, heretofore so powerful and so formidable.