"Nay, then, my lord, I will be bold. I speak for my own life as well as
for your lordship's. I like not this lady's tampering and trickstering
with this same Edmund Tressilian. You know him, my lord. You know he had
formerly an interest in her, which it cost your lordship some pains to
supersede. You know the eagerness with which he has pressed on the suit
against me in behalf of this lady, the open object of which is to drive
your lordship to an avowal of what I must ever call your most unhappy
marriage, the point to which my lady also is willing, at any risk, to
urge you."
Leicester smiled constrainedly. "Thou meanest well, good Sir Richard,
and wouldst, I think, sacrifice thine own honour, as well as that of any
other person, to save me from what thou thinkest a step so terrible. But
remember"--he spoke these words with the most stern decision--"you speak
of the Countess of Leicester."
"I do, my lord," said Varney; "but it is for the welfare of the Earl of
Leicester. My tale is but begun. I do most strongly believe that this
Tressilian has, from the beginning of his moving in her cause, been in
connivance with her ladyship the Countess."
"Thou speakest wild madness, Varney, with the sober face of a preacher.
Where, or how, could they communicate together?"
"My lord," said Varney, "unfortunately I can show that but too well.
It was just before the supplication was presented to the Queen, in
Tressilian's name, that I met him, to my utter astonishment, at the
postern gate which leads from the demesne at Cumnor Place."
"Thou met'st him, villain! and why didst thou not strike him dead?"
exclaimed Leicester.
"I drew on him, my lord, and he on me; and had not my foot slipped, he
would not, perhaps, have been again a stumbling-block in your lordship's
path."
Leicester seemed struck dumb with surprise. At length he answered,
"What other evidence hast thou of this, Varney, save thine own
assertion?--for, as I will punish deeply, I will examine coolly and
warily. Sacred Heaven!--but no--I will examine coldly and warily--coldly
and warily." He repeated these words more than once to himself, as if in
the very sound there was a sedative quality; and again compressing his
lips, as if he feared some violent expression might escape from them, he
asked again, "What further proof?"
"Enough, my lord," said Varney, "and to spare. I would it rested with me
alone, for with me it might have been silenced for ever. But my servant,
Michael Lambourne, witnessed the whole, and was, indeed, the means of
first introducing Tressilian into Cumnor Place; and therefore I took him
into my service, and retained him in it, though something of a debauched
fellow, that I might have his tongue always under my own command." He
then acquainted Lord Leicester how easy it was to prove the circumstance
of their interview true, by evidence of Anthony Foster, with the
corroborative testimonies of the various persons at Cumnor, who had
heard the wager laid, and had seen Lambourne and Tressilian set off
together. In the whole narrative, Varney hazarded nothing fabulous,
excepting that, not indeed by direct assertion, but by inference, he led
his patron to suppose that the interview betwixt Amy and Tressilian at
Cumnor Place had been longer than the few minutes to which it was in
reality limited.