new flames within him. But just because he loved her, he could not
forgive her for having deceived him. In love there is so much
cruelty and hatred; and Henry, who but yesterday lay at her feet,
burned to-day with rage and jealousy, as yesterday with love and
rapture. In his rage, however, he still loved her, and when he held
in his hand indubitable proof of her guilt, he wept like a child.
But since he could no longer be her lover, he would be her hangman;
since she had spotted the crimson of his royal mantle, he would dye
it afresh with her own crimson blood. And he did so. Catharine
Howard was forced to lay her beautiful head upon the block, as Anne
Boleyn had done before her; and Anne's death was now once more
avenged. Lady Rochfort had been Anne Boleyn's accuser, and her
testimony had brought that queen to the scaffold; but now she was
convicted of being Catharine Howard's assistant and confidante in
her love adventures, and with Catharine, Lady Rochfort also ascended
the scaffold.

"Ah, the king needed a long time to recover from this blow. He
searched two years for a pure, uncontaminated virgin, who might
become his queen without danger of the scaffold. But he found none;
so he took then Lord Neville's widow, Catharine Parr. But you know,
my child, that Catharine is an unlucky name for Henry's queens. The
first Catharine he repudiated, the second he beheaded. What will he
do with the third?"

Lady Jane smiled. "Catharine does not love him," said she, "and I
believe she would willingly consent, like Anne of Cleves, to become
his sister, instead of his wife."

"Catharine does not love the king?" inquired Lord Douglas, in