ve justice, but no
mercy."

"I do not sue for myself," rejoined Jane, "but for my husband. I have
come to offer myself for him. If your highness has any pity for me,
extend it to him, and heap his faults on my head."

Queen Mary was deeply moved. Had not Gardiner intervened, she would
undoubtedly have granted the request; but Gardiner suggested that the
price of the pardon should be the public reconciliation of Lady Jane and
her husband with the Church of Rome.

"I cannot," said Jane. "I will die for him, but I cannot destroy my soul
alive."

_IV.--The Torture Chamber and the Block_

After a week's imprisonment, Cuthbert was closely questioned, and his
answers being deemed unsatisfactory, he was ordered to be examined under
torture. With fiendish delight Nightgall took him to the horrible
chamber. There, the first thing that he saw was the tortured, mangled
figure of Lord Dudley, covered from head to foot by a blood-coloured
cloth.

"You here?" cried the ghastly, distorted figure. "Where is Jane? Has she
fled? Has she escaped?"

"She has surrendered herself," replied Cholmondeley, "in the hope of
obtaining your pardon."

"False hope! Delusive expectation!" exclaimed Dudley, in tones of
anguish, as he was carried from the room. "She will share my fate. Oh
God! I am her destroyer!"

Cholmondeley, as soon as his master had been borne away, was seized by
the torturers and placed on the rack. He determined that not a sound
should escape him, and though his whole frame seemed rent asunder, he
bravely kept his resolve.

"Go on," cried Nightgall, as the torturers paused. "Turn the roller
again."

Even as he spoke Cholmondeley fainted, and, finding that no answers
could be extracted from him, he was taken back to his cell and flung
upon a heap of straw. As he lay there, Nightgall, with diabolical
cruelty, brought Cicely to his side, and bade her look on his nerveless
arms and crippled limbs, and mockingly offered to set him free if Cicely
would marry him of her own free will. When at Cuthbert's instigation she
refused, he forced her away, shrieking for help.

Cuthbert sank once more into insensibility. He came to his senses again
to find that men were chafing his limbs and bathing his temples, and
that Renard was in his cell. At the Spaniard's order he was given a cup
of wine, and the rest having withdrawn, Renard questioned him further.

While this examination was going on the cell door opened softly, and