Francis, she shall be saved!"
"But how?" inquired Isabella anxiously. "Wouldst thou deny her faith
to Father Francis, and persuade him she has spoken falsely?"
The King shook his head. "That will never do, Isabel. I have had the
holy man closeted with me already, insisting on the sanity of her
words, and urging me to resign the unbeliever at once to the tender
mercy of the church. All must depend on thee."
"On me?" repeated Isabella, in a tone of surprised yet anxious
inquiry.
"On thee, love. Thy perfect humility is ignorant of the fact--yet it
is nevertheless perfectly true--that thou art reverenced, well nigh
canonized, by the holy church; and thy words will have weight when
mine would be light as air. Refuse the holy fathers all access to her;
say she is unfitted to encounter them; that she is ill; nay, mad, if
thou wilt. Bring forward the state in which she was borne from the
hall; her very laugh (by St. Francis, it rings in my ear still) to
confirm it, and they will believe thee. The present excitement will
gradually subside, and her very existence be forgotten. Let none but
thy steadiest, most pious matrons have access to her; forbid thy young
maidens to approach or hold converse with her; and her being under
thy protection can do harm to none.
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