started and laid her hand, sparkling with brilliants, on
Jane's lips. "Call me not thus!" said she. "Queen! My God, is not all
the fearful past heard again in that word? Queen! Is it not as much as
to say, condemned to the scaffold and a public criminal trial? Ah, Jane!
a deadly tremor runs through my members. I am Henry the Eighth's
sixth queen; I shall also be executed, or, loaded with disgrace, be
repudiated."

Again she hid her face in her hands, and her whole frame shook; so she
saw not the smile of malicious satisfaction with which Lady Jane again
observed her. She suspected not with what secret delight her friend
heard her lamentations and sighs.

"Oh! I am at least revenged!" thought Jane, while she lovingly stroked
the queen's hair. "Yes, I am revenged! She has robbed me of a crown, but
she is wretched; and in the golden goblet which she presses to her lips
she will find nothing but wormwood! Now, if this sixth queen dies not on
the scaffold, still we may perhaps so work it that she dies of anxiety,
or deems it a pleasure to be able to lay down again her royal crown at
Henry's feet."

Then said she aloud: "But why these fears, Catharine? The king loves
you; the whole court has seen with what tender and ardent looks he has
regarded you to-day, and with what delight he has listened to your every
word. Certainly the king loves you."

Catharine seized her hand impulsively. "The king loves me," whispered
she, "and I, I tremble before him. Yes, more than that, his love fills
me with horror! His hands are dipped in blood, and as I saw him to-day
in his crimson robes I shuddered, and I thought, How soon, and my blood,
too, will dye this crimson!"

Jane smiled. "You are sick, Catharine," said she. "This good fortune has
taken you by surprise, and your overstrained nerves now depict before
you all sorts of frightful forms. That is all."

"No, no, Jane; these thoughts have ever been with me. They have attended
me ever since the king selected me for his wife."

"And why, then, did you not refuse him?" asked Lady Jane. "Why did you
not say 'no' to the king's suit?"

"Why did I not do it, ask you? Ah, Jane, are you such a stranger at
this court as not to know, then, that one must either fulfil the king's
behests or die? My God, they envy me! They call me the greatest and
most potent woman of England. They know not that I am poorer and more
powerless than the beggar of the street, who at least has the power to
refu