.

THE DECLARATION.
Thomas Seymour returned to Catharine.

She still lay there with closed eyes, pale and motionless.
He gazed on her long and steadily; his eyes drank in, in long draughts, the sight of this beautiful and noble woman, and he forgot at that moment that she was a queen.
He was at length alone with her.

At last, after two years of torture, of resignation, of dissimulation, God had granted him this hour, for which he had so long yearned, which he had so long considered unattainable.
Now it was there, now it was his.
And had the whole court, had King Henry himself, come right then, Thomas Seymour would not have heeded it; it would not have affrighted him.

The blood had mounted to his head and overcome his reason.