“Only to wish you happiness with her you love,” replied Carver. “My last words to Constance were to urge her to look forward confidently to the day when she will be united to you. For that day will come. It may not come so soon as you anticipate and desire, but come it will. One word more, and I have done. Should this insurrection prosper, and your enemies fall into your hands, let no harm befal Cardinal Pole. And now tarry no longer, my son. Take my blessing with you, and depart.”
“It is time,” replied Osbert. “I hear the footsteps of the guard. I shall be near you at the stake. Adieu!”
So saying, he disappeared, while Carver, descending from the bench, knelt down and prayed fervently.
His devotions ended, he arose, and bethinking him of the vision he had seen during his slumber, he called out, “Spirit of her from whom I derived my being, if thou art indeed permitted to visit me, and art nigh me now, as I think, I adjure thee to manifest thyself to me in the same angelic form, and with the same angelic aspect, as I beheld thee in my dream. Appear before me in this celestial guise if thou canst, and cheer and comfort me with thy smile!”
At the close of this invocation, which he uttered with great fervour, he looked around, half hoping that the spirit would become visible, but nothing met his gaze except the gloomy walls of his prison. He fancied, however, that he heard something like a soft, low sigh, and felt a breath of cool air upon his brow.
“It may not be,” he said. “Thou canst not reveal thyself to me, or mine eyes are unable to discern thee. But I must have patience. In a few short hours I shall be as thou art, and we can then hold the communion together which is denied us now.”
He then resumed his devotions, and continued in earnest prayer till dawn glimmered through the bars of the window, and ere long filled the vault with light.
Then some slight stir began to be heard in the street, and by-and-by those on guard peered in at the bars of the window. They beheld the prisoner seated upon the bench, with the Bible open on his knee, profoundly occupied in its perusal.
