It was certainly mean and unworthy of a princess to eavesdrop, but she was at that time but a young girl who loved, and who wanted to observe her lover.

So she stayed; she laid her hand on her anxiously-throbbing heart, and murmured to herself: "What will he say?
What means this anxious dread that comes over me ?" "Well," said Thomas Seymour, in an entirely altered tone, "if we are alone, then this mask which hides my face may fall; then the cuirass which binds my heart may be loosened.

Hail, Catharine, my star and my hope! No one, you say, hears us, save God alone; and God knows our love, and He knows with what longing, and what ecstasy, I have sighed for this hour--for this hour, which at length again unites me to you.

My God, it is an eternity since I have seen you, Catharine; and my heart thirsted for you as a famishing man for a refreshing draught.

Catharine, my beloved, blessed be you, that you have at last called me to you!" He opened his arms for her, but she repulsed him sharply.