enry--compassion on the
anxiety and agony which I endure. It is not possible that this is all a
reality! that this juggling is to be changed into such terrible earnest!
Tell me, King Henry--I conjure you by the agonies which I suffer for
your sake--tell me, what will you do with Henry Howard? Why have you
sent him to the Tower?"

"To punish the traitor as he deserves," said the king, as he cast a dark
and angry look across at Douglas, who had also approached his daughter,
and was now standing close by her.

Lady Jane uttered a heartrending cry, and sank down again, senseless and
completely exhausted.

The king frowned. "It is possible," said he--"and I almost believe
it--that I have been deceived in many ways this evening, and that now
again my guilelessness has been played upon in order to impose upon me
a charming story. However, I have given my word to pardon; and it shall
not be said that Henry the Eighth, who calls himself God's vicegerent,
has ever broken his word; nor even that he has punished those whom he
has assured of exemption from punishment. My Lord Douglas, I will fulfil
my promise. I forgive you."

He extended his hand to Douglas, who kissed it fervently. The king bent
down closer to him. "Douglas," whispered he, "you are as cunning as a
serpent; and I now see through your artfully-woven web! You wanted
to destroy Surrey, but the queen was to sink into the abyss with him.
Because I am indebted to you for Surrey, I forgive you what you have
done to the queen. But take heed to yourself, take heed that I do not
meet you again on the same track; do not ever try again, by a look, a
word, ay, even by a smile, to cast suspicion on the queen. The slightest
attempt would cost you your life! That I swear to you by the holy mother
of God; and you know that I have never yet broken that oath. As regards
Lady Jane, we do not want to consider that she has misused the name of
our illustrious and virtuous consort in order to draw this lustful and
adulterous earl into the net which you had set for him; she obeyed your
orders, Douglas; and we will not now decide what other motives besides
have urged her to this deed. She may settle that with God and her own
conscience, and it does not behoove us to decide about it."

"But it behooves me, perhaps, my husband, to ask by what right Lady Jane
has dared to appear here in this attire, and to present to a certain
degree a counterfeit of her queen?" asked Catharine in a sharp