my heart and crept like a thief into my love! Arise, and leave
this room; for you fill me with horror; and when I behold you, I feel
only that I must curse you! Ay, a curse on you and shame, Geraldine!
Curse on the kisses that I have impressed on your lips--on the tears of
rapture that I have wept on your bosom. When I ascend the scaffold, I
will curse you, and my last words shall be: 'Woe to Geraldine!--for she
is my murderess!'"

He stood there before her with arm raised on high, proud and great in
his wrath. She felt the destroying lightning of his eyes, though she
durst not look up at him, but lay at his feet moaning and convulsed, and
concealing her face in her veil, as she shuddered at her own picture.

"And this be my last word to you Geraldine," said Henry Howard, panting
for breath: "Go hence under the burden of my curse, and live--if you
can!"

She unveiled her head, and raised her countenance toward him. A
contemptuous smile writhed about her deathly pale lips. "Live!" said
she. "Have we not sworn to die with each other? Your curse does not
release me from my oath, and when you descend into the grave, Jane
Douglas will stand upon its brink, to wail and weep until you make a
little place for her there below; until she has softened your heart and
you take her again, as your Geraldine, into your grave. Oh, Henry! in
the grave, I no longer wear the face of Jane Douglas--that hated face,
which I would tear with my nails. In the grave, I am Geraldine again.
There I may again lie close to your heart, and again you will say to
me: 'I love not your face and your external form! I love you yourself;
I love your heart and mind; and that can never change; and can never be
otherwise!'"

"Silence!" said he, roughly; "silence, if you do not want me to run
mad! Cast not my own words in my face. They defile me, for falsehood has
desecrated and trodden them in the mire. No! I will not make room for
you in my grave. I will not again call you Geraldine. You are Jane
Douglas, and I hate you, and I hurl my curse upon your criminal head! I
tell you--"

He suddenly paused, and a slight convulsion ran through his whole frame.

Jane Douglas uttered a piercing scream, and sprang from her knees.

Day had broken; and from the prison-tower sounded the dismal, plaintive
stroke of the death-bell.

"Do you hear, Jane Douglas?" said Surrey. "That bell summons me to
death. You it is that has poisoned my last hour. I was happy when I