As his eye passed on, it was arrested by the Bloody Tower, which, as some say, was the spot in which the tragic murder of the young princes was enacted. "They knew not the pains of life," he thought, "neither knew they its joys! They knew not that mutual affection which so painfully yet so sweetly attaches one to existence! But there," and he looked upon the stone which marks the place where Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey were executed,--"there did two pure creatures, bound to each other by every holy tie of faith and love, yield up their innocent spirits. They who had scarcely tasted of happiness,--the cup was snatched from their lips ere they could fully know its sweetness! They would have esteemed themselves most blessed, could they have been assured of as many years of mutual affection, of wedded bliss, as I have already enjoyed. Alas for ye, innocent victims of the ambition of others! when I remember you, I must not repine! And there, again!" as his thoughts followed the objects on which his eye dwelt,--"that was the prison of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn,--wounded in her affections, in her honour,--pampered with flattery, surrounded with pomp, enervated by splendour, only to be the more cruelly and suddenly plunged into the depths of misery and disgrace. No! no! I must not repine!"--and he again schooled his mind to resignation and submission. "I have neither met with falsehood nor with ingratitude! my honour is not impeached! I must not, will not, repine!" Lady Nithsdale meanwhile was not inactive. She visited the Countesses of Derwentwater and Wintoun; and they agreed that, should the sentence not prove favourable, they would together present a petition to parliament, and in the intervening space of time that each should exert her private influence with those in power, to win as many as possible to their interest. She visited her husband's cousin, the Duchess of Buccleugh, and obtained the duke's promise to present a petition should the necessity occur; and having taken every measure that prudence could dictate, she had but to await in tremulous anxiety the sentence which was to be pronounced on the 9th of February. She frequently contrived to see her lord, though she was always obliged to do so by stealth. These visits, although so ardently desired by both, were to both hours of bitter anguish. The Earl of Nithsdale, fully aware of the feeling which prevailed against him, anticipated but too justly the sentence which would be pronounced, and could not bring himself to echo the hopeful sentiments with which his wife buoyed up her spirits; neither had he the heart fully to express to her his own more gloomy apprehensions. He listened to the details of all she had done, and all she projected, with a gentle, hopeless gratitude, which saddened and dispirited her; although she could not, she would not, adopt his view of the subject.