earl's arm, and allowed himself to be
led again into the cabinet.

With officious haste Earl Douglas made the necessary arrangements. He
rolled the writing-table up to the king; he placed the large sheet of
white paper in order, and slipped the pen into the king's hand.

"What shall I write?" asked the king, who, by the exertion of his
night's excursion, and of his anger and vexation, began at length to be
exhausted.

"An order for the queen's imprisonment, sire."

The king wrote. Earl Douglas stood behind him, with eager attention, in
breathless expectation, his look steadily fixed on the paper over which
the king's hand, white, fleshy, and sparkling with diamonds, glided
along in hasty characters.

He had at length reached his goal. When at last he should hold in his
hand the paper which the king was then writing--when he had induced
Henry to return to his apartments before the imprisonment of the queen
had taken place--then was he victorious. Not that woman there would he
then imprison; but, with the warrant in his hand, he would go to the
real queen, and take her to the Tower.

Once in the Tower, the queen could no longer defend herself; for the
king would see her no more; and if before the Parliament she protested
her innocence in ever so sacred oaths, still the king's testimony must
convict her; for he had himself surprised her with her paramour.

No, there was no escape for the queen. She had once succeeded in
clearing herself of an accusation, and proving her innocence, by a
rebutting alibi. But this time she was irretrievably lost, and no alibi
could deliver her.

The king completed his work and arose, whilst Douglas, at his command,
was employed in setting the king's seal to the fatal paper.

From the hall was heard a slight noise, as though some person were
cautiously moving about there.

Earl Douglas did not notice it; he was just in the act of pressing the
signet hard on the melted sealing-wax.

The king heard it, and supposed that it was Geraldine, and that she was
just waking from her swoon and rising.

He stepped to the door of the hall, and looked toward the place where
she was lying. But no--she had not yet risen; she still lay stretched at
full length on the floor.

"She has come to; but she still pretends to be in a swoon," thought the
king; and he turned to Douglas.

"We are done," said he; "the warrant for imprisonment is prepared, and
the sentence of the adulterous queen is spoke