“Too far!” exclaimed Catherine. “Too far!—Is to warn you that you are about to take a wanton to your bed—and that you will bitterly repent your folly when too late, going too far? It is my duty, Henry, no less than my desire, thus to warn you ere the irrevocable step be taken.”
“Have you said all you wish to say, madam?” demanded the king.
“No, my dear liege, not a hundredth part of what my heart prompts me to utter,” replied Catherine. “I conjure you by my strong and tried affection—by the tenderness that has for years subsisted between us—by your hopes of temporal prosperity and spiritual welfare—by all you hold dear and sacred—to pause while there is yet time. Let the legates meet to-morrow—let them pronounce sentence against me and as surely as those fatal words are uttered, my heart will break.”
“Tut, tut!” exclaimed Henry impatiently, “you will live many years in happy retirement.”
“I will die as I have lived—a queen,” replied Catherine; “but my life will not be long. Now, answer me truly—if Anne Boleyn plays you false—”
“She never will play me false!” interrupted Henry.
“I say if she does,” pursued Catherine, “and you are satisfied of her guilt, will you be content with divorcing her as you divorce me?”
“No, by my father's head!” cried Henry fiercely. “If such a thing were to happen, which I hold impossible, she should expiate her offence on the scaffold.”
“Give me your hand on that,” said Catherine.
“I give you my hand upon it,” he replied.