Lady Jane has not
done that!"
"May it please your majesty to go yourself and take a look at that
fainting woman, who was to Henry Howard the queen."
The king did not reply to him; but he drew back the curtain and
reentered the cabinet, in which the queen was waiting with John
Heywood.
Henry did not notice them. With youthful precipitation he crossed
the cabinet and the hall. Now he stood by the figure of Geraldine
still lying on the floor.
She was no longer in a swoon. She had long since regained her
consciousness; and terrible were the agonies and tortures that rent
her heart. Henry Howard had incurred the penalty of the headsman's
axe, and it was she that had betrayed him.
But her father had sworn to her that she should save her lover.
She durst not die then. She must live to deliver Henry Howard.
There were burning, as it were, the fires of hell in her poor heart;
but she was not at liberty to heed these pains. She could not think
of herself--only of him--of Henry Howard, whom she must deliver,
whom she must save from an ignominious death.
For him she sent up her fervent prayers to God; for him her heart
trembled with anxiety and agony, as the king now advanced to her,
and, bending down, gazed into her eyes with a strange expression, at
once scrutinizing and smiling.
"Lady Jane," said he then, as he presented her his hand, "arise from
the ground and allow your king to express to you his thanks for your
sublime and wonderful sacrifice! Verily, it is a fair lot to be a
king; for then one has at least the power of punishing traitors, and
of rewarding those that serve us.
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