so that you might be
Thomas Seymour's wife."

"Mother, you defend him; and yet he it is that blames you daily; and but
yesterday it seemed to him perfectly right and natural that the duke had
forsaken you, our mother."

"Did he do that?" inquired the duchess, vehemently. "Well, now, as he
has forgotten that I am his mother, so will I forget that he is my son.
I am your ally! Revenge for our injured hearts! Vengeance on father and
son!"

She held out both hands, and the two young women laid their hands in
hers.

"Vengeance on father and son!" repeated they both; and their eyes
flashed, and crimson now mantled their cheeks.

"I am tired of living like a hermit in my palace, and of being banished
from court by the fear that I may encounter my husband there."

"You shall encounter him there no more," said her daughter, laconically.

"They shall not laugh and jeer at me," cried Arabella. "And when they
learn that he has forsaken me, they shall also know how I have avenged
myself for it."

"Thomas Seymour can never become my husband so long as Henry Howard
lives; for he has mortally offended him, as Henry has rejected the hand
of his sister. Perhaps I may become his wife, if Henry Howard is no
more," said the young duchess. "So let us consider. How shall we begin,
so as to strike them surely and certainly?"

"When three women are agreed, they may well be certain of their
success," said Arabella, shrugging her shoulders. "We live--God be
praised for it--under a noble and high-minded king, who beholds the
blood of his subjects with as much pleasure as he does the crimson of
his royal mantle, and who has never yet shrunk back when a death-warrant
was to be signed."

"But this time he will shrink back," said the old duchess. "He will not
dare to rob the noblest and most powerful family of his kingdom of its
head."

"That very risk will stimulate him," said the Duchess of Richmond,
laughing; "and the more difficult it is to bring down these heads, so
much the more impatiently will he hanker after it. The king hates them
both, and he will thank us, if we change his hatred into retributive
justice."

"Then let us accuse both of high treason!" cried Arabella. "The duke is
a traitor; for I will and can swear that he has often enough called the
king a bloodthirsty tiger, a relentless tyrant, a man without truth and
without faith, although he coquettishly pretends to be the fountain and
rock of all faith."

"If he has