“Oh, should we die, then should we be certain of this blissful future, my Geraldine. There, above, there is no more separation—no more renunciation for us. There above, you are mine, and the bloody image of your husband no longer stands between us.”
“It shall no longer do so, even here on earth,” whispered Geraldine. “Come, my beloved; let us fly far, far hence, where no one knows us—where we can cast from us all this hated splendor, to live for each other and for love.”
She threw her arms about her lover, and in the ecstasy of her love she had wholly forgotten that she could never indeed think to flee with him, that he belonged to her only so long as he saw her not.
An inexplicable anxiety overpowered her heart; and in this anxiety she forgot everything—even the queen and the vengeance she had vowed.
She now remembered her father’s words, and she trembled for her lover’s life.
If now her father had not told her the truth—if now he had notwithstanding sacrificed Henry Howard in order to ruin the queen—if she was not able to save him, and through her fault he were to perish on the scaffold—above Henry the Eighth will no more be the judge, but the condemned criminal; “and your bloody and accursed deeds will witness against you!”
The king laughed. “You avail yourself of your advantage,” said he. “Because you have nothing more to lose and the scaffold is sure of you, you do not stick at heaping up the measure of your sins a little more, and you revile your legitimate, God-appointed king! But you should bear in mind, earl, that before the scaffold there is yet the rack, and that it is very possible indeed that a painful question might there be put to the noble Earl Surrey, to which his agonies might prevent him from returning an answer. Now, away with you! We have nothing more to say to each other on earth!”
He motioned to the soldiers, who approached the Earl of Surrey. As they reached their hands toward him, he turned on them a look so proud and commanding that they involuntarily recoiled a step.
“Follow me!” said Henry Howard, calmly; and, without even deigning the king a single look more, with head proudly erect, he walked to the door.
Geraldine still lay on the ground—her face turned to the floor. She stirred not. She seemed to have fallen into a deep swoon.