But, by the eternal God, you shall not say that you have done this with impunity! Once more, and for the last time, I now ask you, will you comply with Lord Hertford's wish?
Will you marry Lady Margaret, and accompany me with Thomas Seymour to the altar ?" "No, I will not, and I will never do it!" exclaimed her brother, solemnly.

"The Howards bow not before the Seymours; and never will Henry Howard marry a wife that he does not love!" "Ah, you love her not!" said she, breathless, gnashing her teeth.

"You do not love Lady Margaret; and for this reason must your sister renounce her love, and give up this man whom she adores.

Ah, you love not this sister of Thomas Seymour?
She is not the Geraldine whom you adore--to whom you dedicate your verses! Well, now, I will find her out--your Geraldine.

I will discover her; and then, woe to you and to her! You refuse me your hand to lead me to the altar with Thomas Seymour; well, now, I will one day extend you my hand to conduct you and your Geraldine to the scaffold!" And as she saw how the earl startled and turned pale, she continued with a scornful laugh: "Ah, you shrink, and horror creeps over you! Does your conscience admonish you that the hero, rigid in virtue, may yet sometimes make a false step?
You thought to hide your secret, if you enveloped it in the veil of night, like your Geraldine, who, as you wailingly complain in that poem there, never shows herself to you without a veil as black as night.