cceeded
under various artful false pretences in influencing the king to give his
signet-ring to one of his lords. But his majesty was already warned,
and he already knew that it was not a man, as they wanted to make him
believe, but a woman, who came, not to take leave of you, but to deliver
you from prison.--My lady, the jailer whom you imagined that you had
bribed was a faithful servant of the king. He betrayed your plot to me;
and it was I who ordered him to make a show of favoring your deed. You
will not be able to release Earl Surrey; but if such is your command, I
will myself see you to the ship that lies in the harbor for you ready to
sail. No one will hinder you, my lady, from embarking on it; Earl Surrey
is not permitted to accompany you!--My lord, soon the night is at an
end, and you know that it will be your last night. The king has ordered
that I am not to prevent this lady, if she wishes to spend this night
with you in your room. But she is allowed to do so only on the condition
that the lights in your room remain burning. That is the king's express
will, and these are his own words: 'Tell Earl Surrey that I allow him to
love his Geraldine, but that he is to open his eyes to see her! That he
may see, you will give him a light; and I command him not to extinguish
it so long as Geraldine is with him. Otherwise he may confound her with
another woman; for in the dark one cannot distinguish even a harlequin
from a queen!'--You have now to decide, my lord, whether this lady
remains with you, or whether she goes, and the light shall be put out!"

"She shall remain with me, and I very much need the light!" said Earl
Surrey; and his penetrating look rested steadily on the veiled figure,
which shook at his words, as if in an ague.

"Have you any other wish besides this, my lord?"

"None, save that I may be left alone with her."

The lieutenant bowed and left the room.

They wore now alone again, and stood confronting each other in silence.
Naught was heard but the beating of their hearts, and the sighs of
anguish that burst from Geraldine's trembling lips.

It was an awful, a terrible pause. Geraldine would gladly have given her
life could she thereby have extinguished the light and veiled herself in
impenetrable darkness.

But the earl would see. With an angry, haughty look, he stepped up
to her, and, as with commanding gesture lie raised his arm, Geraldine
shuddered and submissively bowed her head.

"Unvei