“Queen, take good heed, consider well what you say!” exclaimed Thomas Seymour, his countenance clearing up and his face flaming with delight. “Bear in mind that your words must be either a condemnation or an avowal. I wish death, or your love! Not the love of a queen, who thinks to be gracious to her subject, when for the moment she elevates him to herself; but the love of a woman who bows her head in meekness and receives her lover as at the same time her lord. Oh, Catharine, be well on your guard! If you come to me with the pride of a queen, if there be even one thought in you which tells you that you are bestowing a favor on a subject as you take him to your heart, then be silent and let me go hence. I am proud, and as nobly born as yourself, and however love throws me conquered at your feet, yet it shall not bow my head in the dust! But if you say that you love me, Catharine, for that I will consecrate my whole life to you. I will be your lord, but your slave also. There shall be in me no thought, no feeling, no wish that is not devoted and subservient to you. And when I say that I will be your lord, I mean not thereby that I will not lie forever at your feet and bow my head in the dust, and say to you: Tread on it, if it seem good to you, for I am your slave!”
And speaking thus, he dropped on his knees and pressed to her feet his face, whose glowing and noble expression ravished Catharine’s heart.
She hent down to him, and gently lifting his head, looked with an indescribable expression of happiness and love deep into his beaming eyes.
“Do you love me?” asked Seymour, as he put his arm softly around her slender waist, and arose from his kneeling attitude.
“I love you!” said she, with a firm voice and a happy smile. “I love you, not as a queen, but as a woman; and if perchance this love bring us both to the scaffold, well then we shall at least die together, to meet again there above!”
“No, think not now of dying, Catharine, think of living—of the beautiful, enchanting future which is beckoning to us. Think of the days which will soon come, and in which our love will no longer require secresy or a veil, but when we will manifest it to the whole world, and can proclaim our happiness from a full glad breast! Oh, Catharine, let us hope that compassionate and merciful death will loose at last the unnatural bonds that bind you to that old man. Then, when Henry is no more, then will you be mine, mine with your entire being, with your whole life; and instead of a proud regal crown, a crown of myrtle shall adorn your head! Swear that to me, Catharine; swear that you will become my wife, as soon as death has set you free.”
The queen shuddered and her cheeks grew pale. “Oh,” said she with a sigh, “death then is our hope and perhaps the scaffold our end!”
“No, Catharine, love is our hope, and happiness our end. Think of life, of our future! God grant my request. Swear to me here in the face of God, and of sacred and calm nature around us, swear to me, that from the day when death frees you from your husband you will be mine, my wife, my consort! Swear to me, that you, regardless of etiquette and unmindful of tyrannical custom, will be Lord Seymour’s wife, before the knell for Henry’s death has died away. We will find a priest, who may bless our love and sanctify the covenant that we have this day concluded for eternity! Swear to me, that, till that wished—for day, you will keep for me your truth and love, and never forget that my honor is yours also, that your happiness is also mine!”
“I swear it!” said Catharine, solemnly. “You may depend upon me at all times and at all hours. Never will I be untrue to you; never will I have a thought that is not yours. I will love you as Thomas Seymour deserves to be loved, that is with a devoted and faithful heart. It will be my pride to subject myself to you, and with glad soul will I serve and follow you, as your true and obedient wife.”
“I accept your oath!” said Seymour, solemnly. “But in return I swear that I will honor and esteem you as my queen and mistress. I swear to you that you shall never find a more obedient subject, a more unselfish counsellor, a more faithful husband, a braver champion, than I will be. ‘My life for my queen, my entire heart for my beloved’; this henceforth shall be my motto, and may I be disowned and despised by God and by you, if ever I violate this oath.”