Besides, my daughter, you are in error: and if a certain high, but not on that account the less very unfortunate lady, should happen to really love the Earl of Surrey, her lot will, perhaps, be the common one--to practise resignation." An expression of joyful surprise passed over the countenance of Lady Jane, while her father thus spoke; but it was forced to instantly give way to a deathly paleness, as the earl added: "Henry Howard is destined for Catharine Parr, and you are to help her to love so hotly this proud, handsome earl, who is a faithful servant of the Church, wherein alone is salvation, that she will forget all considerations and all dangers." Lady Jane ventured one more objection.

She caught eagerly at her father's words, to seek still for some way of escape.
"You call the earl a faithful servant of our Church," said she, "and yet you would implicate him also in your dangerous plot?
You have not, then, my father, considered that it is just as pernicious to love the queen as to be loved by her?
And, without doubt, if love for the Earl of Surrey bring the queen to the scaffold, the head of the earl will fall at the same time, no matter whether he return her love or not." The earl shrugged his shoulders.
"When the question is about the weal of the Church and our holy religion, the danger which, thereby, it may be, threatens one of our number, must not frighten us back.

Holy sacrifices must be always offered to a holy cause.

Well and good, then, let the earl's head fall, provided the only saving Church gains new vigor from this blood of martyrs.

But see, Jane, the morning already begins to dawn, and I must hasten to leave you, lest these courtiers, ever given to slandering, may in some way or other take the father for a lover, and cast suspicion on the immaculate virtue of my Jane.