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.