"Yes, gracious madam," replied Leicester; "I presented him to kiss your

royal hand when you were last at Nonsuch."

"His outside was well enough," said the Queen, "but scarce so fair, I

should have thought, as to have caused a maiden of honourable birth and

hopes to barter her fame for his good looks, and become his paramour.

Yet so it is; this fellow of yours hath seduced the daughter of a good

old Devonshire knight, Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall, and she hath

fled with him from her father's house like a castaway.--My Lord of

Leicester, are you ill, that you look so deadly pale?"

"No, gracious madam," said Leicester; and it required every effort he

could make to bring forth these few words.

"You are surely ill, my lord?" said Elizabeth, going towards him with

hasty speech and hurried step, which indicated the deepest concern.

"Call Masters--call our surgeon in ordinary.--Where be these loitering

fools?--we lose the pride of our court through their negligence.--Or

is it possible, Leicester," she continued, looking on him with a very

gentle aspect, "can fear of my displeasure have wrought so deeply on

thee? Doubt not for a moment, noble Dudley, that we could blame THEE

for the folly of thy retainer--thee, whose thoughts we know to be far

otherwise employed. He that would climb the eagle's nest, my lord, cares

not who are catching linnets at the foot of the precipice."

"Mark you that?" said Sussex aside to Raleigh. "The devil aids him

surely; for all that would sink another ten fathom deep seems but to

make him float the more easily. Had a follower of mine acted thus--"

"Peace, my good lord," said Raleigh, "for God's sake, peace! Wait the

change of the tide; it is even now on the turn."

The acute observation of Raleigh, perhaps, did not deceive him; for

Leicester's confusion was so great, and, indeed, for the moment, so

irresistibly overwhelming, that Elizabeth, after looking at him with

a wondering eye, and receiving no intelligible answer to the unusual

expressions of grace and affection which had escaped from her, shot her

quick glance around the circle of courtiers, and reading, perhaps, in

their faces something that accorded with her own awakened suspicions,

she said suddenly, "Or is there more in this than we see--or than you,

my lord, wish that we should see? Where is this Varney? Who saw him?"

"An it please your Grace," said Bowyer, "it is the same against whom I

this instant closed the door of the presence-room."




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