'Begone! Begone!' he cried. 'I will not be of your evil schemes.' 'Your Grace shall not,' Lascelles said very softly, 'if they miscarry. But when it is proven to the hilt that this Queen is a very lewd woman--and proven it shall be--your Grace may carry an accusation to the King----' Cranmer said-- 'Never! never! Shall I come between the lion and his food?' 'It were better if your Grace would carry the accusation,' Lascelles uttered nonchalantly, 'for the King will better hearken to you than to any other. But another man will do it too.' 'I will not be of this plotting,' the Archbishop cried out. 'It is a very wicked thing!' He looked round at the white Christ that, upon the dark cross, bent anguished brows upon him. 'Give me strength,' he said. 'Why, your Grace shall not be of it,' Lascelles answered, 'until it is proven in the eyes of your Grace--ay, and in the eyes of some of the Papist Lords--as, for instance, her very uncle--that this Queen was evil in her life before the King took her, and that she hath acted very suspicious in the aftertime.' 'You shall not prove it to the Papist Lords,' Cranmer said. 'It is a folly.' He added vehemently-- 'It is a wicked plot. It is a folly too. I will not be of it.' 'This is a very fortunate day,' Lascelles said. 'I think it is proven to all discerning men that that letter to him of Rome shall never be sent.' 'Why, it is as plain as the truths of the Six Articles,' Cranmer remonstrated, 'that it shall be sent to-morrow or the next day. Get you gone! This King hath but the will of the Queen to guide him, and all her will turns upon that letter. Get you gone!' 'Please it your Grace,' the spy said, 'it is very manifest that with the Queen so it is. But with the King it is otherwise. He will pleasure the Queen if he may. But--mark me well--for this is a subtle matter----' 'I will not mark you,' the Archbishop said. 'Get you gone and find another master. I will not hear you. This is the very end.' Lascelles moved his arm from the Bible. He bent his form to a bow--he moved till his hand was on the latch of the door. 'Why, continue,' the Archbishop said. 'If you have awakened my fears, you shall slake them if you can--for this night I shall not sleep.' And so, very lengthily, Lascelles unfolded his view of the King's nature. For, said he, if this alliance with the Pope should come, it must be an alliance with the Pope and the Emperor Charles. For the King of France was an atheist, as all men knew. And an alliance with the Pope and the Emperor must be an alliance against France. But the King o' Scots was the closest ally that Francis had, and never should the King dare to wage war upon Francis till the King o' Scots was placated or wooed by treachery to be a prisoner, as the King would have made him if James had come into England to the meeting. Well would the King, to save his soul, placate and cosset his wife. But that he never dare do whilst James was potent at his back.