rceived it
was madness to press the quarrel further against such odds.

"Varney, we shall meet where there are none to come betwixt us!"

So saying, he turned round, and departed through the postern door.

Varney, left alone, gave vent to his meditations in broken words. "She
loves me not--I would it were as true that I loved not 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."

_II.--The Earl and the Countess_

At first, when the Earl of Leicester paid frequent visits to Cumnor, the
Countess was reconciled to the solitude to which she was condemned. But
when these visits became rarer and more rare, the brief letters of
excuse did not keep out discontent and suspicion from the splendid
apartments which love had once fitted up for beauty. Her answers to
Leicester conveyed these feelings too bluntly, and pressed more
naturally than prudently that she might be relieved from the obscure and
secluded residence, by the Earl's acknowledgement of their marriage.

"I have made her Countess," Leicester said to his henchman Varney;
"surely she might wait till it consisted with my pleasure that she
should put on the coronet?"

The Countess Amy viewed the subject in directly an opposite light.

"What signifies," she said, "that I have rank and honour in reality, if
I am to live an obscure prisoner, without either society or observance,
and suffering in my character, as one of dubious or disgraced
reputation?"

Leicester, high in Elizabeth's favour, dared not avow his marriage, and
Varney was always at hand to paint the full and utter disgrace that
would overwhelm him at the Court were the marriage known, and to spur
his ambition to avoid the ruin of his fortunes.

Varney even prompted Leicester to invite the Countess to pass as
Varney's wife, lest Elizabeth's jealousy should be aroused, and this
suggestion and the knowledge that Varney desired her for himself (for he
made no secret of his passion), drove the Countess to escape from Cumnor
and to seek her husband at Kenilworth, Janet Foster, her faithful
attendant, at first suggested that the Countess should return home to
her father, Sir Hugh Robsart, at Lidcote Hall, in Devonshire.

"No, Janet," said the lady mournfully; "I left Lidcote Hall while my
heart was light and my name was honourable, an