"My Lord of Hunsdon," said the Dean of St. Asaph--"I speak it not in

defamation of his more noble qualities--hath a broad license in speech,

and garnishes his discourse somewhat too freely with the cruel and

superstitious oaths which savour both of profaneness and of old

Papistrie."

"It is the fault of his blood, Mr. Dean," said the Queen, turning

sharply round upon the reverend dignitary as she spoke; "and you may

blame mine for the same distemperature. The Boleyns were ever a hot and

plain-spoken race, more hasty to speak their mind than careful to

choose their expressions. And by my word--I hope there is no sin in that

affirmation--I question if it were much cooled by mixing with that of

Tudor."

As she made this last observation she smiled graciously, and stole her

eyes almost insensibly round to seek those of the Earl of Leicester, to

whom she now began to think she had spoken with hasty harshness upon the

unfounded suspicion of a moment.

The Queen's eye found the Earl in no mood to accept the implied offer

of conciliation. His own looks had followed, with late and rueful

repentance, the faded form which Hunsdon had just borne from the

presence. They now reposed gloomily on the ground, but more--so at least

it seemed to Elizabeth--with the expression of one who has received an

unjust affront, than of him who is conscious of guilt. She turned her

face angrily from him, and said to Varney, "Speak, Sir Richard, and

explain these riddles--thou hast sense and the use of speech, at least,

which elsewhere we look for in vain."

As she said this, she darted another resentful glance towards Leicester,

while the wily Varney hastened to tell his own story.

"Your Majesty's piercing eye," he said, "has already detected the cruel

malady of my beloved lady, which, unhappy that I am, I would not suffer

to be expressed in the certificate of her physician, seeking to conceal

what has now broken out with so much the more scandal."

"She is then distraught?" said the Queen. "Indeed we doubted not of

it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in a corner of

yonder grotto; and every word she spoke--which indeed I dragged from her

as by the rack--she instantly recalled and forswore. But how came she

hither? Why had you her not in safe-keeping?"

"My gracious Liege," said Varney, "the worthy gentleman under whose

charge I left her, Master Anthony Foster, has come hither but now, as

fast as man and horse can travel, to show me of her escape, which

she managed with the art peculiar to many who are afflicted with this

malady. He is at hand for examination."




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