he wildly pressed Catharine to his bosom, he continued:
"Oh, are we not foolish and short-sighted men, all of us, yes, even we
kings? In order that I might not be, perhaps, forced to send my
sixth wife also to the scaffold, I chose, in trembling dread of the
deceitfulness of your sex, a widow for my queen, and this widow with
a blessed confession, mocks at the new law of the wise Parliament, and
makes good to me what she never promised." [Footnote: After Catharine
Howard's infidelity and incontinency had been proved, and she had atoned
for them by her death, Parliament enacted a law "that if the king or his
successors should intend to marry any woman whom they took to be a clean
and pure maid--if she, not being so, did not declare the same to the
king, it should be high treason: and all who knew it; and did not reveal
it, were guilty of misprision of treason."--"Burnet's History of the
Reformation of the Church of England." London, 1681 (vol. i, p. 313)]

"Come, Kate, give me a kiss. You have opened before me to-day a happy,
blissful future, and prepared for me a great and unexpected pleasure.
I thank you for it, Kate, and the Mother of God be my witness, I will
never forget it."

And drawing a rich diamond ring from his own finger, and putting it upon
Catharine's, he continued: "Be this ring a remembrancer of this hour,
and when you hereafter present it to me, with a request, I will grant
that request, Kate!"

He kissed her forehead, and was about to press her more closely in his
arms, when suddenly from without was heard the dull roll of drums, and
the ringing of bells.

The king started a moment and released Catharine from his arms. He
listened; the roll of drums continued, and now and then was heard in the
distance, that peculiar thundering and yet sullen sound, which so much
resembles the roar and rush of the sea, and which can be produced only
by a large and excited mob.

The king, with a fierce curse, pushed open the glass door leading to the
balcony, and walked out.

Catharine gazed after him with a strange, half-timid, half-scornful
look. "I have not at least told him that I love him," muttered she. "He
has construed my words as it suited his vanity. No matter. I will not
die on the scaffold!"

With a resolute step, and firm, energetic air, she followed the king to
the balcony. The roll of drums was kept up, and from all the steeples
the bells were pealing. The night was dark and calm. All London seemed