The feeble youth became animated with a spirit which surprised Lord Dudley, as he uttered these words. A bright flush spread over his cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with the excitement which sprang both from disease and a resentful feeling, perhaps the most violent that ever visited his gentle heart. Naturally kind and most affectionate in his nature, he had always clung with fondness to those members of his family connected with his mother, and, since her birth, the Lady Jane had been his especial favorite. It therefore aroused all the strong feelings of royal pride in his heart to hear that a creature so pure and delicate had been, through an abuse of power, made the inmate of a prison. Nor was he better reconciled to the fact when Dudley informed him that it was through her own affectionate desire to mitigate the confinement of her persecuted parent that she had abandoned all to follow him. The youthful monarch was touched by an act of devotion such as his own heart would have prompted, and he questioned Lord Dudley regarding the arbitrary power by which the fallen protector had been imprisoned, with a degree of energy, and an evident determination to know the exact position of affairs, which astonished as much as it pleased the anxious nobleman. Lord Dudley’s was a difficult and painful explanation. It was scarcely possible to place the proceedings against the Duke of Somerset in a favorable light before the young king, without in some degree exposing the conduct of his own parent to condemnation. Still he had entered the presence of his sovereign with a firm resolve to explain all, and throw himself and his hopes on the generosity of a mere boy, and an invalid, who had ever been completely controlled by his guardians, those guardians the very men whom he was called upon to brave. It was with faint hopes, that Dudley undertook this last appeal, when all other efforts to assist his friends failed, and when he had done speaking, when he saw the feeble youth lying back in his chair, pale and exhausted from the emotions which his narrative had excited, he felt almost condemned, that any motive could have induced him to disturb the repose of a being so fragile and sensitive. “My liege, my kind, gracious master,” said the young man, starting to his feet as the overpowered monarch sank back to his chair, faint, pale, and with his golden lashes quivering upon his thin cheeks as they closed his eyes; “my gracious king, forgive me that I have thus intruded—that for any reason I have disturbed a repose which should be sacred to the whole nation; but the persecution of a being so fair—so good—one whom I have long looked upon as my future wife—who is now suffering and in prison”— Dudley broke off abruptly, for all at once the hectic color rushed back into the king’s face, and his languid blue eyes kindled with the brilliancy of a spirit, for the first time, thoroughly aroused.