"She shall proceed to Durham if I am king," answered James, with his
usual weak-headed obstinacy.
"I make no doubt of her obedience," answered the doctor.
"Obedience is what I require," replied the king. "That given, I will do
more for her than she expects."
He consented, in the end, that she should remain a month at Highgate,
under confinement, at the end of which time she should proceed to
Durham. The month passed. She wrote a letter to the king which procured
her a second month's respite. But that time, too, passed on, and the day
fixed for her further journey approached.
The lady now showed none of the wild grief which she had at first
displayed. She was resigned to her fate, she said, and manifested a
tender sorrow which won the hearts of her keepers, who could not but
sympathize with a high-born lady thus persecuted for what was assuredly
no crime, if even a fault.
At heart, however, she was by no means so tranquil as she seemed. Her
communications with Seymour had secretly continued, and the two had
planned a wildly-romantic project of escape, of which this seeming
resignation was but part. The day preceding that fixed for her departure
arrived. The lady had persuaded an attendant to aid her in paying a last
visit to her husband, whom she declared she must see before going to her
distant prison.
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