cuted this quarrel.

"Stand up, and let me go," said Leicester, "or, by Heaven, I will pierce
thee with my rapier! What hast thou to do to bar my way to revenge?"

"Much--much!" exclaimed the undaunted boy, "since my folly has been
the cause of these bloody quarrels between you, and perchance of worse
evils. Oh, if you would ever again enjoy the peace of an innocent mind,
if you hope again to sleep in peace and unhaunted by remorse, take so
much leisure as to peruse this letter, and then do as you list."

While he spoke in this eager and earnest manner, to which his singular
features and voice gave a goblin-like effect, he held up to Leicester
a packet, secured with a long tress of woman's hair of a beautiful
light-brown colour. Enraged as he was, nay, almost blinded with fury to
see his destined revenge so strangely frustrated, the Earl of Leicester
could not resist this extraordinary supplicant. He snatched the letter
from his hand--changed colour as he looked on the superscription--undid
with faltering hand the knot which secured it--glanced over the
contents, and staggering back, would have fallen, had he not rested
against the trunk of a tree, where he stood for an instant, his eyes
bent on the letter, and his sword-point turned to the ground, without
seeming to be conscious of the presence of an antagonist towards whom
he had shown little mercy, and who might in turn have taken him at
advantage. But for such revenge Tressilian was too noble-minded. He
also stood still in surprise, waiting the issue of this strange fit of
passion, but holding his weapon ready to defend himself in case of need
against some new and sudden attack on the part of Leicester, whom he
again suspected to be under the influence of actual frenzy. The boy,
indeed, he easily recognized as his old acquaintance Dickon, whose face,
once seen, was scarcely to be forgotten; but how he came hither at so
critical a moment, why his interference was so energetic, and, above
all, how it came to produce so powerful an effect upon Leicester, were
questions which he could not solve.

But the letter was of itself powerful enough to work effects yet more
wonderful. It was that which the unfortunate Amy had written to her
husband, in which she alleged the reasons and manner of her flight from
Cumnor Place, informed him of her having made her way to Kenilworth
to enjoy his protection, and mentioned the circumstances which had
compelled her to take refuge in