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THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE.
neared, he started violently, and backed against a coping. It was a woman, in white cerements; and she came gliding with arms outstretched. Henry, in a shudder crossed himself, and kept the wall. The white woman, wraith-like, sped past us, straight as an arrow for the King. "Jesu !" he stuttered, "absolve me."
"Ah ! Gracious Sovereign," she said lowly, "here is your signet, if I am not holy, send me away."
"Catherine !" he said, turning toward her, "risen from the dead!"
"By your prayers meward," she answered sweetly. "It was but a seizure, and the cold vaults have recovered me fully; but I fear for Norfolk."
"How, now!" said Henry. "Is the Duke now in them ?"
"Ay ! My Majesty ! He sought me ; and, by arrangement, is locked shut therein."
"By my rood !" said Henry coldly. "Crafty fox ! Then he shall suffer a martyrdom as beseems. And you, sweet Cath ! Y' are ready for a journey Londonward?" She gave one swift upward look at him, and placed a hand upon his &leeve. Then, turning she dropped from her girdle a heavy key. It fell into the Wensum, and they, smiling, watched it.
And now, as you know, he carried her to London and made her his Queen. Poor moth ! 'Twere better for her had she lain forever as he had seen her at Horsham House. She was his summer's plaything at Windsor, courted by the gallant throng. She was dainty, vivacious and above all lovable. The device on her arms read, "No other will than his."
Having been set up like a doll's house by priestly intrigues, it served them when the time came to pull her down again. On the day after All Saints' Day, when Henry was at mass, Archbishop Cranmer put a paper in his hand with a caution to read it in privacy. It contained the confession of a serving maid, that Catherine had been married secretly to the Duke of Norfolk; while at Horsham. To foil a
CATHARINE RECOGNIZES HER HEADSMAN.
Kingly lover, like Henry Tudor, were a foolhardy matter; and his cooled love turned to bitterness toward her. With a small escort she was sent up the Thames to Sion House to await the King's pleasure. By devious counsels her death was decided upon ; for by the law, such as it was, the royal blood had been attainted.
It was on a grey morning in January that the word came to bring her down the river. We put forth in three vessels; first, a state barge filled with Privy Councillors; a guard's barge filled with soldiers, I among them ; and a little barget entirely covered. In this was Queen Catherine alone. The barge-mates cast off and the sad procession swept along the wintry river Londonward.
Under the frowning portcullis of the Traitor's Gate, in the gathering twilight, the beautiful girl in black silkvelvet, landed amidst a throng of courtiers. She was treated with much ceremony ; as if she sate by the King's side. Her cousin, the poet Surrey, with his own doom impending, bending low, handed her from the barget. We formed ranks, and she stepping blithely, marched to the walls of London Tower, where a scaffold was set up.