Gardiner's piercing look. "We are not speaking of myself," said he
at length, "but of the young queen, and I entreat for her your good
wishes. I have seen her to-day almost for the first time, and have
never spoken with her, but her countenance has touchingly impressed
me, and it appeared to me, her looks besought us to remain at her
side, ready to help her on this difficult pathway, which five wives
have already trod before her, and in which they found only misery
and tears, disgrace, and blood."

"Let Catharine beware then that she does not forsake the right way,
as her five predecessors have done!" exclaimed Gardiner. "May she be
prudent and cautious, and may she be enlightened by God, that she
may hold the true faith, and have true wisdom, and not allow herself
to be seduced into the crooked path of the godless and heretical,
but remain faithful and steadfast with those of the true faith!"

"Who can say who are of the true faith?" murmured Cranmer, sadly.
"There are so many paths leading to heaven, who knows which is the
right one?"

"That which we tread!" cried Gardiner, with all the overweening
pride of a minister of the church. "Woe to the queen should she take
any other road! Woe to her if she lends her ear to the false
doctrines which come ringing over here from Germany and Switzerland,
and in the worldly prudence of her heart imagines that she can rest
secure! I will he her most faithful and zealous servant, if she is
with me; I will be her most implacable enemy if she is against me."

"And will you call it being against you, if the queen does not
choose you for her confessor?"