Either the protector’s voice aroused Edward, or he had not slept, for scarcely was the door closed when his voice summoned the page to his bedside. When the duke’s message was repeated to him, a smile of satisfaction settled on his face, and he sank into a tranquil slumber. After awhile those usually quiet apartments were full of bustle and preparation. Attendants passed in and out; pages were seen running to and fro with mysterious faces. More than one laden wherry untied its contents at the tower stairs, and everything bespoke the approach of some uncommon event. * * * * * One little month had scarcely passed when the Duke of Somerset, bereft of wealth and station, sat in a gloomy prison room of the tower, expecting each moment to be dragged forth to trial, and, perhaps, an ignominious death. It was a large room, but so dimly lighted that persons sitting together looked sallow and careworn in the dusky atmosphere that filled it. The very sunbeams forced themselves sluggishly through the high window, as if rusted by the masses of old iron which blocked their passage, and were lost, long before they reached the floor, in a web of ragged and dusty cobwebs, which covered the ceiling like mouldering tapestry, moth-eaten and turning to dust where it hung. There, on the gloomy floor of this desolate place, sat the prisoner, striving to read by the unhealthy light, which was only sufficient to make the effort a painful one. He lifted his eyes to the grating with an impatient exclamation, and, flinging his book on the floor, began pacing up and down the stone flags. Instantly a figure started forward from an inner room and lifted the book; while the sweet, pale face of Lady Jane Seymour was raised for a moment to that of her suffering parent, as he moved rapidly up and down the room. She laid the book once more upon the flags, and exerted all her frail strength to move the chair her father had occupied to a station nearer the window. This done, she again lifted the ponderous volume with her two fair hands, smoothed out the dark letter page which had been doubled in the fall, and bearing it to the duke, besought him to sit down, while she read aloud to him.