Jane looked at him for a moment, as if she did not comprehend his meaning, and then replied in the same tone—“I only required to see you so resigned to your fate, my dear lord, to make me wholly indifferent to mine. May we mount the scaffold together with as much firmness!”
“We shall mount the throne together—not the scaffold, Jane,” rejoined Dudley, significantly.
“Ha!” exclaimed Jane, perceiving from his speech that he meditated some new project.
Further discourse was not, however, allowed her, for at this moment she was separated from her husband by the halberdiers, who led her to the litter in which she was carried back to the Tower.
Left to herself within her prison-chamber, she revolved Dudley’s mysterious words; and though she could not divine their precise import, she felt satisfied that he cherished some hope of replacing her on the throne. So far from this conjecture affording her comfort, it deeply distressed her—and for the first time for a long period her constancy was shaken. When her jailor visited her, he found her in the deepest affliction.
“Alas! madam,” he observed, in a tone of great commiseration, “I have heard the result of your trial, but the queen may yet show you compassion.”
“It is not for myself I lament,” returned Jane, raising her head, and drying her tears, “but for my husband.”
“Her majesty’s clemency may be extended towards him likewise,” remarked the jailor.
“Not so,” returned Jane, “we have both offended her too deeply for forgiveness, and justice requires that we should expiate our offence with our lives. But you mistake me, friend. It is not because my husband is condemned as a traitor, that I grieve; but because he still nourishes vain and aspiring thoughts. I will trust you, knowing that you are worthy of confidence. If you can find means of communicating with Lord Guilford Dudley for one moment, tell him I entreat him to abandon all hopes of escape, or of restoration to his fallen state, and earnestly implore him to think only of that everlasting kingdom which we shall soon inherit together. Will you do this?”
“Assuredly, madam, if I can accomplish it with safety,” replied the jailor.