"And you share the views of these people whom you call martyrs?"
asked the king, as Anne Askew now paused for a moment and struggled
for breath.

"Yes, I share them!"

"You deny, then, the truth of the six articles?"

"I deny them!"

"You do not see in me the head of the Church?"

"God only is Head and Lord of the Church!"

A pause followed--a fearful, awful pause.

Every one felt that for this poor young girl there was no hope, no
possible escape; that her doom was irrevocably sealed.

There was a smile on the king's countenance.

The courtiers knew that smile, and feared it yet more than the
king's raging wrath.

When the king thus smiled, he had taken his resolve. Then there was
with him no possible vacillation or hesitation, but the sentence of
death was resolved on, and his bloodthirsty soul rejoiced over a new
victim.