"Our noblest!" Then he rose and stepped to the
window: "I must now accompany the Queen home," he said. "She has
gone to sleep outside, and this damp is not good for her in her weak
condition."
"At her Majesty's age one must be very careful," replied the Cardinal.
He emphasized the word _age_, for Katherine was forty, and gave no
more hopes of an heir to the throne. Her daughter Mary might certainly
be married, but one did not know to whom.
"Sire," he continued, "do not be angry, but I have just now opened
the Holy Scripture.... It may be an accident--will you listen?"
"Speak."
"In the third Book of Moses, the twentieth and twenty-first
chapters, I read the following--but you will not be angry with your
servant?"
"Read."
"These are the Lord's solemn words: 'If any man take his brother's
wife, it is evil; they shall be childless.'"
The King was excited, and approached the Cardinal.
"Is that there? Yes, truly! God has punished me by taking my sons
one after the other. What a wonderful book, in which everything is
written! That is the reason then! But what says Thomas Aquinas, the
'Angel' of the Schoolmen?"
"Yes, sire, if you wish the matter elucidated, we must consult the
learned."
"Let us do so,--but quietly and cautiously. The Queen is blameless,
and nothing evil must happen to her.
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