immense solitude, the
deep silence of the grave, was around her.

Naught was heard save the panting and snorting of the horse; naught but
the crash and clatter of his hoofs. Suddenly, however, this sound
seemed to find an echo. It was repeated over yonder. There was the same
snorting and panting; there was the same resounding trampling of hoofs.
And now, oh, now, struck on Catharine's car the sound of a voice only
too well loved, and made her scream aloud with delight and desire.

But this cry frightened anew the enraged animal. For a moment, exhausted
and panting, he had slackened in his mad race; now he sprang forward
with renewed energy; now he flew on as if impelled by the wings of the
wind. But ever nearer and nearer sounded the loved voice ever nearer the
tramp of his horse.

They were now upon a large plain, shut in on all sides by woods. While
the queen's horse circled the plain in a wide circuit, Seymour's,
obedient to the rein, sped directly across it, and was close behind the
queen.

"Only a moment more! Only hold your arms firmly around the animal's
neck, that the shock may not hurl you off, when I lay hold of the rein!"
shouted Seymour, and he set his spurs into his horse's flanks, so that
he sprang forward with a wild cry.

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 wa