“You are a clever woman,” he said; “we understand each other, coming from the same blood. You know the case; what is your counsel to me now?” “That which you will not take, being foredoomed for your sins. Still I’ll give it honestly. Set the Lady Cicely free, restore her lands, confess your evil doings. Fly the kingdom before Cromwell turns on you and Henry finds you out, taking with you all the gold that you can gather, and bribe the Emperor Charles to give you a bishopric in Granada or elsewhere--not near Seville, for reasons that you know. So shall you live honoured, and one day, after you have been dead a long while and many things are forgotten, perchance be beatified as Saint Clement of Blossholme.” The Abbot looked at her reflectively. “If I sought safety only and old age comforts your counsel might be good, but I play for higher stakes.” “You set your head against them,” broke in Emlyn. “Not so, woman, for in any case that head must win. If it stays upon my shoulders it will wear an archbishop’s mitre, or a cardinal’s hat, or perhaps something nobler yet; and if it parts from them, why, then a heavenly crown of glory.” “Your head? _Your_ head?” exclaimed Emlyn, with a contemptuous laugh. “Why not?” he answered gravely. “You chance to know of some errors of my youth, but they are long ago repented of, and for such there is plentiful forgiveness,” and he crossed himself. “Were it not so, who would escape?” Emlyn, who had been standing all this while, sat herself down, set her elbows on the table and rested her chin upon her clenched hands. “True,” she said, looking him in the eyes; “none of us would escape. But, Clement Maldon, how about the unrepented errors of your age? Sir John Foterell, for instance; Sir Christopher Harflete, for instance; my Lady Cicely, for instance; to say nothing of black treason and a few other matters?” “Even were all these charges true, which I deny, they are no sins, seeing that they would have been done, every one of them, not for my own sake, but for that of the Church, to overset her enemies, to rebuild her tottering walls, to secure her eternally in this realm.” “And to lift you, Clement Maldon, to the topmost pinnacle of her temple, whence Satan shows you all the kingdoms of the world, swearing that they shall be yours.” Apparently the Abbot did not resent this bold speech; indeed, Emlyn’s apt illustration seemed to please him. Only he corrected her gently, saying--