CHAPTER X.THE KING'S FOOL.
Two years had passed away since the king's marriage, and still Catharine Parr had always kept in favor with her husband; still her enemies were foiled in their attempts to ruin her, and raise the seventh queen to the throne.
Catharine had ever been cautious, ever discreet.

She had always preserved a cold heart and a cool head.

Each morning she had said to herself that this day might be her last; that some incautious word, some inconsiderate act, might deprive her of her crown and her life.
For Henry's savage and cruel disposition seemed, like his corpulency, to increase daily, and it needed only a trifle to inflame him to the highest pitch of rage, rage which, each time, fell with fatal stroke on him who aroused it.
A knowledge and consciousness of this had made the queen cautious.

She did not wish to die yet.

She still loved life so much.