"It is he whom we spoke of before dinner," said Foster, as he looked

through the casement; "it is Michael Lambourne."

"Oh, admit him, by all means," said the courtier; "he comes to give some

account of his guest; it imports us much to know the movements of Edmund

Tressilian.--Admit him, I say, but bring him not hither; I will come to

you presently in the Abbot's library."

Foster left the room, and the courtier, who remained behind, paced the

parlour more than once in deep thought, his arms folded on his bosom,

until at length he gave vent to his meditations in broken words, which

we have somewhat enlarged and connected, that his soliloquy may be

intelligible to the reader.

"'Tis true," he said, suddenly stopping, and resting his right hand on

the table at which they had been sitting, "this base churl hath fathomed

the very depth of my fear, and I have been unable to disguise it from

him. She loves me not--I would it were as true that I loved not her!

Idiot that I was, to move her in my own behalf, when wisdom bade me be

a true broker to my lord! And this fatal error has placed me more at her

discretion than a wise man would willingly be at that of the best piece

of painted Eve's flesh of them all. Since the hour that my policy made

so perilous a slip, I cannot look at her without fear, and hate, and

fondness, so strangely mingled, that I know not whether, were it at my

choice, I would rather possess or ruin her. But she must not leave this

retreat until I am assured on what terms we are to stand. My lord's

interest--and so far it is mine own, for if he sinks I fall in his

train--demands concealment of this obscure marriage; and besides, I will

not lend her my arm to climb to her chair of state, that she may set her

foot on my neck when she is fairly seated. I must work an interest in

her, either through love or through fear; and who knows but I may yet

reap the sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?--that

were indeed a masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her

counsel-keeper--let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the

robbery of a linnet's nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!"

He again paced the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of

wine, as if to compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering,

"Now for a close heart and an open and unruffled brow," he left the

apartment.




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