purely than any other man can love you; for this love is so great that it makes my selfishness and my ambition silent, and allows me to think only of you and your future."

"Ah," sighed she, mournfully., "if you really loved me, you would not consider--you would not see the danger, nor fear death. You would think of nothing, and know nothing, save love."

"Because I think of love, I think of you," said Seymour. "I think that you are to move along over the world, great, powerful, and glorious, and that I will lend you my arm for this. I think of this, that my queen of the future needs a general who will win victories for her, and that I will be that general. But when this goal is reached--when you are queen--then you have the power from one of your subjects to make a husband; then it rests with your own will to elevate me to be the proudest, the happiest, and the most enviable of all men. Extend me your hand, then, and I will thank and praise God that he is so gracious to me; and my whole existence will be spent in the effort to give you the happiness that you are so well entitled to demand."

"And until then?" asked she, mournfully.

"Until then, we will be constant, and love each other!" cried he, as he gently pressed her in his arms. She gently repelled him. "Will you also be true to me till then?"

"True till death!"

"They have told me that you would marry the Duchess of Richmond, in order thereby to at length put an end to the ancient hatred between the Howards and Seymours."

Thomas Seymour frowned, and his countenance grew dark. "Believe me, this hatred is invincible," said he; "and no matrimonial alliance could wash it away. It is an inheritance from many years in our families; and I am firmly resolved not to renounce my inheritance. I shall just as little marry the Duchess of Richmond, as Henry Howard will my sister, the Countess of Shrewsbury."

"Swear that to me! Swear to me, that you say the truth, and that this haughty and coquettish duchess shall never be your wife. Swear it to me, by all that is sacred to you!"

"I swear it by my love!" exclaimed Thomas Seymour, solemnly.

"I shall then at least have one sorrow the less," sighed Elizabeth. "I shall have no occasion to be jealous. And is it not true," she then said, "is it not true we shall often see each other? We will both keep this secret of this tower faithfully and sacredly; and after days full of privation and disappointment, we will here keep festival the nights full of blissful pleasure and sweet transport. But why do you smile, Seymour?"

"I smile, because you are pure and innocent as an angel," said he, as he reverently kissed her hand. "I smile, because you are an exalted, godlike child, whom one ought to adore upon his knees, and to whom one ought to pray, as to the chaste goddess Vesta! Yes, my dear, beloved child, here we will, as you say, pass nights full of blissful pleasure; and may I be reprobate and damned, if I should ever be capable of betraying this sweet, guileless confidence with which you favor me, and sully your angel purity!"

"Ah, we will be very happy, Seymour!" said she, smiling. "I lack only one thing--a friend, to whom I can tell my happiness, to whom I can speak of you. Oh, it often seems to me as if this love, which must always be concealed, always shut up, must at last burst my breast; as if this secret must with violence break a passage, and roar like a tempest over the whole world. Seymour, I want a confidante of my happiness and my love."

"Guard yourself well against desiring to seek such a one!" exclaimed Seymour, anxiously. "A secret that three know, is a secret no more; and one day your confidante will betray us."

"Not so; I know a woman who would be incapable of that--a woman who loves me well enough to keep my secret as faithfully as I myself; a woman who could be more than merely a confidante, who could be the protectress of our love. Oh, believe me, if we could gain her to our side, then our future would be a happy and a blessed one, and we might easily succeed in obtaining the king's consent to our marriage."

"And who is this woman?"

"It is the queen."

"The queen!" cried Thomas Seymour, with such an expression of horror that Elizabeth trembled; "the queen your confidante? But that is impossible! That would be plunging us both inevitably into ruin. Unhappy child, be very careful not to mention even a single word, a syllable of your relation to me. Be very careful not to betray to her, even by the slightest intimation, that Thomas Seymour is not indifferent to you! Ah, her wrath would dash to pieces you and me!"

"And why do you believe that?" asked Elizabeth, gloomily. "Why do you suppose that Catharine would fly into a passion because Earl Seymour loves me? Or how?--it is she, perhaps, that you love, and you dare not therefore let her know that you have sworn your love to me also? Ah, I now see through it all; I understand it all! You love the queen--her only. For that reason you will not go to the chapel with me; for that reason you swore that you would not marry the Duchess of Richmond; and therefore--oh, my presentiment did not deceive me--therefore that furious ride in Epping Forest to-day. Ah, the queen's horse must of course become raving, and run away, that his lordship, the master of horse, might follow his lady, and with her got lost in the thicket of the woods!--And now," said she, her eyes flashing with anger, and raising her hand to heaven as if taking an oath, "now I say to you: Take heed to yourself! Take heed to yourself, Seymour, that you do not, even by a single word or a single syllable, betray your secret, for that word would crush you! Yes, I feel it, that I am no bastard, that I am my father's own daughter; I feel it in this wrath and this jealousy that rages within me! Take heed to yourself, Seymour, for I will go hence and accuse you to the king, and the traitor's head will fall upon the scaffold!"

She was beside herself. With clenched fists and a threatening air she paced the room up and down. Tears gushed from her eyes; but she shook them out of her eyelashes, so that they fell scattering about her like pearls. Her father's impetuous and untractable nature stirred within her, and his blood seethed in her veins.

But Thomas Seymour had already regained his self-command and composure. He approached the princess and despite her struggles clasped her in his arms.

"Little fool!" said he, between his kisses. "Sweet, dear fool, how beautiful you are in your anger, and how I love you for it! Jealousy is becoming to love; and I do not complain, though you are unjust and cruel toward me. The queen has much too cold and proud a heart ever to be loved by any man. Ah, only to think this is already treason to her virtue and modesty; and surely she has not deserved this from us two, that we should disdain and insult her. She is the first that has always been just to you; and to me she has ever been only a gracious mistress!"

"It is true," murmured Elizabeth, completely ashamed; "she is a true friend and mother; and I have her to thank for my present position at this court."

Then, after a pause, she said, smiling, and extending her hand to the earl: "You are right. It would be a crime to suspect her; and I am a fool. Forgive me, Seymour, forgive my absurd and childish anger; and I promise you in return to betray our secret to no one, not even to the queen."

"Do you swear that to me?"

"I swear it to you! and I swear to you more than that: I will never again be jealous of her."

"Then you do but simple justice to yourself and to the queen also," said the earl, with a smile, as he drew her again to his arms.

But she pushed him gently back. "I must now away. The morning dawns, and the archbishop awaits me in the royal chapel."

"And what will you say to him, beloved?"

"I will make my confession to him."

"How! so you will then betray our love to him?"

"Oh," said she, with a bewitching smile," that is a secret between us and God; and only to Him alone can we confess it; because He alone can absolve us from it. Farewell, then, Seymour, farewell, and think of me till we see each other again! But when--say, when shall we meet again?"

"When there is a night like this one, beloved, when the moon is not in the heavens.

Oh, then I could wish there were a change of the moon every week," said she, with the charming innocence of a child. "Farewell, Seymour, farewell; we must part."

She clung to his tall, sturdy form as the ivy twines around the trunk of an oak. Then they parted. The princess slipped again softly and unseen into her apartments, and thence into the royal chapel; the earl descended again the spiral staircase which led to the secret door of the garden.

Unobserved and unseen he returned to his palace; even his valet, who slept in the anteroom, did not see him, as the earl crept past him lightly on his toes, and betook himself to his sleeping-room.

But no sleep came to his eyes that night, and his soul was restless and full of fierce torment. He was angry with himself, and accused himself of treachery and perfidy; and then again, full of proud haughtiness, he still tried to excuse himself and to silence his conscience, which was sitting in judgment on him.

"I love her--her only!" said he to himself. "Catharine possesses my heart, my soul; I am ready to devote my whole life to her. Yes, I love her! I have this day so sworn to her; and she is mine for all eternity!"

"And Elizabeth?" asked his conscience. "Have you not sworn truth and love to her also?"