"Justice, my lord," answered Tressilian, calmly but firmly.

"Justice," said Leicester, "all men are entitled to. YOU, Master

Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be assured you shall have it."

"I expect nothing less from your nobleness," answered Tressilian; "but

time presses, and I must speak with you to-night. May I wait on you in

your chamber?"

"No," answered Leicester sternly, "not under a roof, and that roof mine

own. We will meet under the free cope of heaven."

"You are discomposed or displeased, my lord," replied Tressilian; "yet

there is no occasion for distemperature. The place is equal to me, so

you allow me one half-hour of your time uninterrupted."

"A shorter time will, I trust, suffice," answered Leicester. "Meet me in

the Pleasance when the Queen has retired to her chamber."

"Enough," said Tressilian, and withdrew; while a sort of rapture seemed

for the moment to occupy the mind of Leicester.

"Heaven," he said, "is at last favourable to me, and has put within my

reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy--who has

inflicted on me this cruel agony. I will blame fate no more, since I am

afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he means still further

to practise on me, and then of at once convicting and punishing his

villainy. To my task--to my task! I will not sink under it now, since

midnight, at farthest, will bring me vengeance."

While these reflections thronged through Leicester's mind, he again made

his way amid the obsequious crowd, which divided to give him passage,

and resumed his place, envied and admired, beside the person of his

Sovereign. But could the bosom of him thus admired and envied have been

laid open before the inhabitants of that crowded hall, with all its dark

thoughts of guilty ambition, blighted affection, deep vengeance, and

conscious sense of meditated cruelty, crossing each other like spectres

in the circle of some foul enchantress, which of them, from the most

ambitious noble in the courtly circle down to the most wretched menial

who lived by shifting of trenchers, would have desired to change

characters with the favourite of Elizabeth, and the Lord of Kenilworth?

New tortures awaited him as soon as he had rejoined Elizabeth.

"You come in time, my lord," she said, "to decide a dispute between us

ladies. Here has Sir Richard Varney asked our permission to depart from

the Castle with his infirm lady, having, as he tells us, your lordship's

consent to his absence, so he can obtain ours. Certes, we have no will

to withhold him from the affectionate charge of this poor young person;

but you are to know that Sir Richard Varney hath this day shown himself

so much captivated with these ladies of ours, that here is our Duchess

of Rutland says he will carry his poor insane wife no farther than the

lake, plunge her in to tenant the crystal palaces that the enchanted

nymph told us of, and return a jolly widower, to dry his tears and to

make up the loss among our train. How say you, my lord? We have seen

Varney under two or three different guises--you know what are his proper

attributes--think you he is capable of playing his lady such a knave's

trick?"




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