“It is not wise. I speak as to a Christian mind. Though none hath shown himself more bitterly my foe than this cousin of thine, yet he was no assassin. He was, I know, for a warlike rising: his obscure lodging was found full of arms; and though he lived as frugally as he that laboureth for a groat a-day, yet was a horse worth fifty pieces, and trained for the great saddle, found in the shed, behind the small house where he lived. I have shown him all the favour in my power:--the sentence and manner of his death are changed. His life is a forfeit to the weal of England. I am no man of blood, lady:--the signing of death-warrants is no joy to me; but one example on a scaffold may save the lives of thousands. Lady, your visit will only disturb his last moments. I have cared for his soul:--a godly minister doth see him; and I learn that he doth exercise himself as a dying man should. It seems that you have not seen him for many years:--he will not expect thee--does not think of thee:--cousinship is not so close a kindred. I cannot grant thy prayer.” “My Lord, I am his nearest relative--his only relative now living in the land. We were together in our youth. I would not fail him in this hour. At such a time, to feel that he is not forsaken of all men must be a comfort to the spirit. Besides, he may have parting words for his distant father, and parting words are precious. Oh, grant my suit, your Highness! on my knees I humbly ask it--I implore it. Oh, grant my suit! I will not let you go till my poor prayer is answered.” Katharine had approached, and fallen upon her knees, and in her hands she had clasped the skirt of his dark cloak. “Lady, control yourself: I have a human heart--but duties are too sacred to be foregone for tears. I cannot grant your prayer.” “Why not, my Lord? Oh, why this strict and stern refusal? Oh, deign to tell me what makes you thus cruelly dismiss me?” “It were to commit evil against thy cousin’s soul, and to defeat the ends of public justice; I can tell by thy lofty eyes thou wilt carry him the means of death.” Katharine rose from her low posture with a look of reproof to the suspicious usurper at once dignified and solemn. “Francis Heywood, my Lord, is of a nobler spirit than to tarnish his brave life by an end so mean, and hath too holy a trust in his Redeemer’s mercy to shrink from his appointed trial. But were he other, and I found him so, and with a poison cup at his lips, this friendly hand should dash it from them.” “You speak of what you know not: the most valiant heart that ever beat might yet shrink from the shame and dishonours of the scaffold.”