“Begone!” cried the king furiously. “You have killed her!”
“It were well for us both if I had done so,” replied Catherine. “But she will recover to work my misery and her own. To your hands I commit her punishment. May God bless you, Henry!”
With this she replaced her mask, and quitted the chapel.
Henry, meanwhile, anxious to avoid the comments of his attendants, exerted himself to restore Anne Boleyn to sensibility, and his efforts were speedily successful.
“Is it then reality?” gasped Anne, as she gazed around. “I hoped it was a hideous dream. Oh, Henry, this has been frightful! But you will not kill me, as she predicted? Swear to me you will not!”
“Why should you be alarmed?” rejoined the king. “If you are faithful, you have nothing to fear.”
“But you said suspicion, Henry—you said suspicion!” cried Anne.
“You must put the greater guard upon your conduct,” rejoined the king moodily. “I begin to think there is some truth in Catherine's insinuations.”
“Oh no, I swear to you there is not,” said Anne—“I have trifled with the gallants of Francis's court, and have listened, perhaps too complacently, to the love-vows of Percy and Wyat, but when your majesty deigned to cast eyes upon me, all others vanished as the stars of night before the rising of the god of day. Henry, I love you deeply, devotedly—but Catherine's terrible imprecations make me feel more keenly than I have ever done before the extent of the wrong I am about to inflict upon her—and I fear that retributive punishment will follow it.”
“You will do her no wrong,” replied Henry. “I am satisfied of the justice of the divorce, and of its necessity; and if my purposed union with you were out of the question, I should demand it. Be the fault on my head.”