sleep of his nights. You wanted to
have Henry Howard in your power; and this crafty and hypocritical earl
knew how to conceal his guilt so securely under the mask of virtue and
loftiness of soul! But I knew him, and behind this mask I had seen his
face distorted with passion and crime. I wanted to unmask him; but for
this, it was necessary that I should deceive first him, and then for the
hour even yourself. I knew that he burned with an adulterous love for
the queen, and I wanted to avail myself of the madness of this passion,
in order to bring him surely and unavoidably to a richly-deserved
punishment. But I would not draw the pure and exalted person of the
queen into this net with which we wanted to surround Earl Surrey. I was
obliged, then, to seek a substitute for her; and I did so. There was
at your court a woman whose whole heart belongs, after God, to the king
alone; and who so much adores him, that she would be ready at any hour
gladly to sacrifice for the king her heart's blood, her whole being--ay,
if need be, even her honor itself--a woman, sire, who lives by your
smile, and worships you as her redeemer and savior--a woman whom you
might, as you pleased, make a saint or a strumpet; and who, to please
you, would be a shameless Phyrne or a chaste veiled nun."

"Tell me her name, Douglas," said the king, "tell me it! It is a rare
and precious stroke of fortune to be so loved; and it would be a sin not
to want to enjoy this good fortune."

"Sire, I will tell you her name when you have first forgiven me," said
Douglas, whose heart leaped for joy, and who well understood that the
king's anger was already mollified and the danger now almost overcome.
"I said to this woman: 'You are to do the king a great service; you are
to deliver him from a powerful and dangerous foe! You are to save him
from Henry Howard!' 'Tell me what I must do!' cried she, her looks
beaming with joy. 'Henry Howard loves the queen. You must be the queen
to him. You must receive his letters, and answer them in the queen's
name. You must grant him interviews by night, and, favored by the
darkness of the night, make him believe that it is the queen whom he
holds in his arms. He must be convinced that the queen is his lady-love;
and in his thoughts, as in his deeds, he must be placed before the king
as a traitor and criminal whose head is forfeited to the headsman's axe.
One day we will let the king be a witness of a meeting that Henry Howard
bel