gth find death or
favor. You shall hear me, queen!"

"No, no," said she, almost in anguish, "I will not, I cannot hear you!
Remember that I am Henry the Eighth's wife, and that it is dangerous to
speak to her. Silence, then, earl, silence, and let us ride on."

She would have arisen, but her own exhaustion and Lord Seymour's hand
caused her to sink back again.

"No, I will not be silent," said he. "I will not be silent until I have
told you all that rages and glows within me. The Queen of England may
either condemn me or pardon me, but she shall know that to me she is not
Henry the Eighth's wife, but only the most charming and graceful, the
noblest and loveliest woman in England. I will tell her that I never
recollect she is my queen, or, if I do so, it is only to curse the king,
who was presumptuous enough to set this brightly sparkling jewel in his
bloody crown."

Catharine, almost horrified, laid her hand on Seymour's lips. "Silence,
unhappy man, silence! Know you that it is your sentence of death which
you are now uttering? Your sentence of death, if any soul hears you?"

"But no one hears me. No one save the queen, and God, who, however, is
perhaps more compassionate and merciful than the queen. Accuse me then,
queen; go and tell your king that Thomas Seymour is a traitor; that he
dares love the queen. The king will send me to the scaffold, but I
shall nevertheless deem myself happy, for I shall at least die by your
instrumentality. Queen, if I cannot live for you, then beautiful it is
to die for you!"

Catharine listened to him wholly stupefied, wholly intoxicated. This
was, for her, language wholly new and never heard before, at which her
heart trembled in blissful awe, which rushed around her in enchanting
melodies and lulled her into a sweet stupefaction. Now she herself
even forgot that she was queen, that she was the wife of Henry, the
bloodthirsty and the jealous. She was conscious only of this, that
the man whom she had so long loved, was now kneeling at her side. With
rapture she drank in his words, which struck upon her ear like exquisite
music.

Thomas Seymour continued. He told her all he had suffered. He told her
he had often resolved to die, in order to put an end to these tortures,
but that then a glance of her eye, a word from her lips, had given him
strength to live, and still longer endure these tortures, which were at
the same time so full of rapture.

"But now, queen, now my strength i