The change effected on the Countess's look and manner was like magic.

"Dudley!" she exclaimed, "Dudley! and art thou come at last?" And with

the speed of lightning she flew to her husband, clung round his neck,

and unheeding the presence of Varney, overwhelmed him with caresses,

while she bathed his face in a flood of tears, muttering, at the

same time, but in broken and disjointed monosyllables, the fondest

expressions which Love teaches his votaries.

Leicester, as it seemed to him, had reason to be angry with his lady

for transgressing his commands, and thus placing him in the perilous

situation in which he had that morning stood. But what displeasure could

keep its ground before these testimonies of affection from a being so

lovely, that even the negligence of dress, and the withering effects

of fear, grief, and fatigue, which would have impaired the beauty of

others, rendered hers but the more interesting. He received and repaid

her caresses with fondness mingled with melancholy, the last of which

she seemed scarcely to observe, until the first transport of her own joy

was over, when, looking anxiously in his face, she asked if he was ill.

"Not in my body, Amy," was his answer.

"Then I will be well too. O Dudley! I have been ill!--very ill, since

we last met!--for I call not this morning's horrible vision a meeting.

I have been in sickness, in grief, and in danger. But thou art come, and

all is joy, and health, and safety!"

"Alas, Amy," said Leicester, "thou hast undone me!"

"I, my lord?" said Amy, her cheek at once losing its transient flush of

joy--"how could I injure that which I love better than myself?"

"I would not upbraid you, Amy," replied the Earl; "but are you not

here contrary to my express commands--and does not your presence here

endanger both yourself and me?"

"Does it, does it indeed?" she exclaimed eagerly; "then why am I here a

moment longer? Oh, if you knew by what fears I was urged to quit Cumnor

Place! But I will say nothing of myself--only that if it might be

otherwise, I would not willingly return THITHER; yet if it concern your

safety--"

"We will think, Amy, of some other retreat," said Leicester; "and you

shall go to one of my northern castles, under the personage--it will be

but needful, I trust, for a very few days--of Varney's wife."

"How, my Lord of Leicester!" said the lady, disengaging herself from

his embraces; "is it to your wife you give the dishonourable counsel to

acknowledge herself the bride of another--and of all men, the bride of

that Varney?"




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