'Why, if you will do this thing I think there will not many be
behindhand.'
He did what he could to conceal his wincing, and her voice changed its
tone.
'Sir,' she said, and she was eager and pleading, 'you have many men that
take counsel with you, for I trow that you and my Lord of Winchester do
lead such lords as be Catholic in this realm. I know very well that you
and my Lord Bishop of Winchester and such Catholic lords would have me
to be your puppet and so work as you would have me, giving back to the
Church such things as have fallen to Protestants or to men that ye
mislike. But that may not be, for, since I owe mine advancement not to
you, nor to mine own efforts, but to God alone, so to God alone do I owe
fealty.'
She stretched out towards him the hand that he had kissed. The tail of
her coif fell almost to her feet; her body in the fresh sunlight was all
cased in purple velvet, only the lawn of her undershirt showed, white
and tremulous at her wrists and her neck; and, fair and contrasted with
the gold of her hair, her face came out of its abstraction, to take on a
pitiful and mournful earnestness.
'Sir,' she said, 'if you shall speak for God in the councils that you
will hold, believe that your rewards shall be very great. I think that
you have been a man of a very troubled mind, for you have thought only
or mostly of the affairs of this world. But do now this one good stroke
for God His piteous sake, and such a peace shall descend upon you as you
have never yet known. You shall have no more griefs; you shall have no
more fears. And that is better than the jewels of chalices, and than
much lead from the roofs of abbeys. Speak you thus in these councils
that you shall hold, give you such advice to them that come to you
seeking it, and this I promise you--for it is too little a thing to
promise you the love of a Queen and a King's favour, though that too ye
shall not lack--but this I promise you, that there shall descend upon
your heart that most blessed miracle and precious wealth, the peace of
God.'