“Ah, the king needed a long time to recover from this blow. He searched two years for a pure, uncontaminated virgin, who might become his queen without danger of the scaffold. But he found none; so he took then Lord Neville’s widow, Catharine Parr. But you know, my child, that Catharine is an unlucky name for Henry’s queens. The first Catharine he repudiated, the second he beheaded. What will he do with the third?”
Lady Jane smiled. “Catharine does not love him,” said she, “and I believe she would willingly consent, like Anne of Cleves, to become his sister, instead of his wife.”
“Catharine does not love the king?” inquired Lord Douglas, in breathless suspense. “She loves another, then!”
“No, my father! Her heart is yet like a sheet of white paper: no single name is yet inscribed there.”
“Then we must write a name there, and this name must drive her to the scaffold, or into banishment,” said her father impetuously. “It is your business, my child, to take a steel graver, and in some way write a name in Catharine’s heart so deep and indelibly, that the king may some day read it there.”
CHAPTER VIII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Both now kept silent for a long time. Lord Douglas had leaned back on the ottoman, and, respiring heavily, seemed to breathe a little from the exertion of his long discourse. But while he rested, his large, piercing eyes were constantly turned to Jane, who, leaning back on the cushion, was staring thoughtfully into the empty air, and seemed to be entirely forgetful of her father’s presence.
A cunning smile played for a moment over the countenance of the earl as he observed her, but it quickly disappeared, and now deep folds of care gathered on his brow. As he saw that Lady Jane was plunging deeper and deeper into reverie, he at length laid his hand on her shoulder and hastily asked, “What are you thinking of, Jane?”
She gave a sudden start, and looked at the earl with an embarrassed air.