"Ah! you consider it, then, perfectly unworthy of a woman to love a
man who does not adore her?" asked the earl, in a significant tone.
"I am rejoiced to hear this from my daughter, and thus to he certain
that she will not fall in love with the Earl of Surrey, who is
everywhere else called 'the lady-killer.' And if you have informed
yourself in so surprising a manner as to the earl's private
relations, you have done so, without doubt, only because your
sagacious and subtle head has already guessed what commission I
would give you with respect to the earl. 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