If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and

laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of

heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller,

he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly

yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester

felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that

instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing

and misunderstanding their meaning, the half-uttered, half-intimated

congratulations of the courtiers upon the favour of the Queen, carried

apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning,

from which most of them seemed to augur that he might soon arise from

their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued

yet proud smile with which he disclaimed those inferences was yet

curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited

to the uttermost; and supporting with one hand, and apparently without

an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife,

and pointing with the finger of the other to her half-dead features,

demanded in a voice that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman

like the last dread trumpet-call that is to summon body and spirit to

the judgment-seat, "Knowest thou this woman?"

As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the

mountains to cover them, Leicester's inward thoughts invoked the stately

arch which he had built in his pride to burst its strong conjunction,

and overwhelm them in its ruins. But the cemented stones, architrave and

battlement, stood fast; and it was the proud master himself who, as

if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth, kneeled down before

Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble flag-stones on which

she stood.

"Leicester," said Elizabeth, in a voice which trembled with passion,

"could I think thou hast practised on me--on me thy Sovereign--on me thy

confiding, thy too partial mistress, the base and ungrateful deception

which thy present confusion surmises--by all that is holy, false lord,

that head of thine were in as great peril as ever was thy father's!"

Leicester had not conscious innocence, but he had pride to support him.

He raised slowly his brow and features, which were black and swoln with

contending emotions, and only replied, "My head cannot fall but by the

sentence of my peers. To them I will plead, and not to a princess who

thus requites my faithful service."




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