“Never,” returned Jane, gravely, “never so far as I am concerned. Were the crown to be again offered to me, were I assured I could retain it, I would not accept it. No, Dudley, the dream of ambition is over; and I am fully sensible of the error I have committed.”
“As you please, my queen, for I will still term you so,” rejoined Dudley; “but if my father is in arms, I will join him, and we will make one last effort for the prize, and regain it, or perish in the attempt.”
“Your wild ambition will lead you to the scaffold and will conduct me there, also,” replied Jane. “If we could not hold the power when it was in our own hands, how can you hope to regain it?”
“It is not lost, I will not believe it, till I am certified under my father’s own hand that he has abandoned the enterprise,” rejoined Dudley. “You know him not, Jane. With five thousand men at his command, nay, with a fifth of that number, he is more than a match for all his enemies. We shall yet live to see him master of the Tower—of this rebellious city. We shall yet see our foes led to the scaffold. And if I see the traitors, Renard, Pembroke, and Arundel, conducted thither I will excuse Fortune all her malice.”
“Heaven forgive them their treason as I forgive them!” exclaimed Jane. “But I fear their enmity will not be satisfied till they have brought us to the block to which you would doom them.”
“This is not a season for reproaches, Jane,” said Dudley, coldly; “but if you had not trusted that false traitor, Renard—if you had not listened to his pernicious counsels—if you had not refused my suit for the crown, and urged my father to undertake the expedition against Mary—all had been well. You had been queen—and I king.”
“Your reproaches are deserved, Dudley,” replied Jane, “and you cannot blame me more severely than I blame myself. Nevertheless, had I acceded to your desires, had I raised you to the sovereignty, had I turned a deaf ear to Renard’s counsel, and not suffered myself to be duped by his allies Arundel and Pembroke, had I retained your father in the Tower, my reign would not have been of much longer duration.”
“I do not understand you, madam,” said Lord Guilford, sternly.
“To be plain, then,” replied Jane, “for disguise is useless now, I am satisfied that your father aimed at the crown himself, that I was merely placed on the throne to prepare it for him, and that when the time arrived, he would have removed me.”
“Jane!” exclaimed her husband, furiously.
“Have patience, dear Dudley!” she rejoined. “I say not this to rouse your anger, or to breed further misunderstanding between us. Heaven knows we have misery enough to endure without adding to it. I say it to reconcile you to your lot. I say it to check the spirit of ambition which I find is yet smouldering within your bosom. I say it to prevent your joining in any fresh attempt with your father, which will assuredly end in the destruction of both.”
“But you have brought a charge so foul against him, madam,” cried her husband, “that as his son, I am bound to tell you you are grievously in error.”
“Dudley,” replied Jane, firmly, “I have proofs that the duke poisoned my cousin, King Edward. I have proofs also, that he would have poisoned me.”
“It is false,” cried her husband, furiously; “it is a vile calumny fabricated by his enemies. You have been imposed upon.”
“Not so, my lord,” cried Gunnora Braose, who had been an unseen listener to the conversation. “It is no calumny. The royal Edward was poisoned by me at your father’s instigation. And you and your consort would have shared the same fate.”
“False hag! thou liest,” cried Lord Guilford.
“Read that,” replied Gunnora, placing a document in his hands. “It is my order in the duke’s own writing. Do you credit me now.”
Dudley hastily cast his eyes over the scroll. His countenance fell, and the paper dropped from his grasp.
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