This cry roused Hector to new fury. Panting for breath, he shot
forward with fearful leaps, now straight into the thicket of the
woods.
"I hear his voice no more," murmured Catharine. And at length
overcome with anxiety and the dizzy race, and worn out with her
exertions, she closed her eyes; her senses appeared to be about
leaving her.
But at this moment, a firm hand seized with iron grasp the rein of
her horse, so that he bowed his head, shaking, trembling, and almost
ashame, as the horse had found his lord and master.
"Saved! I am saved!" faltered Catharine, and breathless, scarcely in
her senses, she leaned her head on Seymour's shoulder.
He lifted her gently from the saddle, and placed her on the soft
moss beneath an ancient oak. Then he tied the horses to a bough, and
Catharine, trembling and faint, sank on her knees to rest after such
violent exertion.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DECLARATION.
Thomas Seymour returned to Catharine. She still lay there with
closed eyes, pale and motionless.
He gazed on her long and steadily; his eyes drank in, in long
draughts, the sight of this beautiful and noble woman, and he forgot
at that moment that she was a queen.
He was at length alone with her. At last, after two years of
torture, of resignation, of dissimulation, God had granted him this
hour, for which he had so long yearned, which he had so long
considered unattainable. Now it was there, now it was his.
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