“As well as you could desire, Sire,” she replied. “Her Majesty has quite recovered.”
“I would fain reward you for your good tidings,” said Philip. “It rests with yourself whether your imprisonment in this tower shall be prolonged.”
“My term of durance is at an end, Sire,” she rejoined. “I am a prisoner, it is true, but only restricted to the limits of the palace. I desire no greater freedom. The Queen has conferred this grace upon me.”
“Her Majesty has only anticipated my intentions,” said Philip. “It grieved me to think you should have been confined within that dreary cell. But why did you not appeal to me, when you well knew that a word would have procured you full liberty?”
“But I could not utter that word, Sire,” she rejoined, coldly.
“Tarry a moment,” said the King, checking her departure. “This holy man has been sent by Father Jerome, to whose ghostly counsels you once gave heed, in the hope that he may restore you to the Catholic Church.”
“I am much beholden to Father Jerome for his kindly concern in my behalf,” she rejoined; “and it pains me to dismiss the good friar he has sent without a hearing. But a conference would be profitable to neither of us, and I must therefore decline it.”
“How know you that such a conference would be unprofitable, daughter?” said the friar, in tones that trembled with emotion. “I pray you send me not away unheard.”
At the sound of his voice Constance started, and was seized with a trepidation which she could hardly conceal.
“Can he have ventured here in this disguise?” she murmured. “Imprudent that he is, he will sacrifice himself by his rashness! No, no,” she added aloud, “I cannot consent to a conference with you without the Cardinal’s sanction. I am under his charge.”