But he was inexorable. He tore the veil from her face and stared at her. Then with a wild shriek he reeled back and covered his face with his hands.
Jane Douglas durst not breathe or stir. She was pale as marble; her large, burning eyes were fastened with an unutterable expression of entreaty upon her lover, who stood before her with covered head, and crushed with anguish. She loved him more than her life, more than her eternal salvation; and yet she it was that had brought him to this hour of agony.
At length Earl Surrey let his hands fall from his face, and with a fierce movement dashed the tears from his eyes.
As he looked at her, Jane Douglas wholly involuntarily sank upon her knees, and raised her hands imploringly to him. “Henry Howard,” said she, in a low whisper, “I am Geraldine! Me have you loved; my letters have you read with ecstasy, and to me have you often sworn that you loved my mind yet more than my appearance. And often has my heart been filled with rapture, when you told me you would love me however my face might change, however old age or sickness might alter my features. You remember, Henry, how I once asked you whether you would cease to love me, if now God suddenly put a mask before my face, so that you could not recognize my features. You replied to me: ‘Nevertheless, I should love and adore you; for what in you ravishes me, is not your face, but you yourself—yourself with your glorious being and nature. It is your soul and your heart which can never change, which lie before me like a holy book, clear and bright!’ That was your reply to me then, as you swore to love me eternally. Henry Howard, I now remind you of your oath! I am your Geraldine. It is the same soul, the same heart; only God has put a mask upon my face!”
Earl Surrey had listened to her with eager attention, with increasing amazement.
“It is she! It is really!” cried he, as she ceased. “It is Geraldine!”
And wholly overcome, wholly speechless with anguish, he sank into a seat.
Geraldine flew to him; she crouched at his feet; she seized his drooping hand and covered it with kisses. And amid streaming tears, often interrupted by her sighs and her sobs, she recounted to him the sad and unhappy history of her love; she unveiled before him the whole web of cunning and deceit, that her father had drawn around them both. She laid her whole heart open and unveiled before him. She told him of her love, of her agonies, of her ambition, and her remorse. She accused herself; but she pleaded her love as an excuse, and with streaming tears, clinging to his knees, she implored him for pity, for forgiveness.
He thrust her violently from him, and stood up in order to escape her touch. His noble countenance glowed with anger: his eyes darted lightning; his long flowing hair shaded his lofty brow and his face like a sombre veil. He was beautiful in his wrath, beautiful as the archangel Michael trampling the dragon beneath his feet. And thus he bent down his head toward her; thus he gazed at her with flashing and contemptuous looks.
“I forgive you?” said he. “Never will that be! Ha, shall I forgive you?—you, who have made my entire life a ridiculous lie, and transformed the tragedy of my love into a disgusting farce? Oh, Geraldine, how I have loved you; and now you have become to me a loathsome spectre, before which my soul shudders, and which I must execrate! You have crushed my life, and even robbed my death of its sanctity; for now it is no longer the martyrdom of my love, but only the savage mockery of my credulous heart. Oh, Geraldine, how beautiful it would have been to die for you!—to go to death with your name upon my lips!—to bless you!—to thank you for my happy lot, as the axe was already uplifted to smite off my head! How beautiful to think that death does not separate us, but is only the way to an eternal union; that we should lose each other but a brief moment here, to find each other again forevermore!”