own service, and place
the boy in our Secretary office for instruction, that he may in future
use discretion towards letters. For you, Tressilian, you did wrong in
not communicating the whole truth to us, and your promise not to do so
was both imprudent and undutiful. Yet, having given your word to this
unhappy lady, it was the part of a man and a gentleman to keep it; and
on the whole, we esteem you for the character you have sustained in this
matter.--My Lord of Leicester, it is now your turn to tell us the truth,
an exercise to which you seem of late to have been too much a stranger."

Accordingly, she extorted, by successive questions, the whole history
of his first acquaintance with Amy Robsart--their marriage--his
jealousy--the causes on which it was founded, and many particulars
besides. Leicester's confession, for such it might be called, was
wrenched from him piecemeal, yet was upon the whole accurate, excepting
that he totally omitted to mention that he had, by implication or
otherwise, assented to Varney's designs upon the life of his Countess.
Yet the consciousness of this was what at that moment lay nearest to
his heart; and although he trusted in great measure to the very positive
counter-orders which he had sent by Lambourne, it was his purpose to set
out for Cumnor Place in person as soon as he should be dismissed from
the presence of the Queen, who, he concluded, would presently leave
Kenilworth.

But the Earl reckoned without his host. It is true his presence and his
communications were gall and wormwood to his once partial mistress.
But barred from every other and more direct mode of revenge, the Queen
perceived that she gave her false suitor torture by these inquiries,
and dwelt on them for that reason, no more regarding the pain which she
herself experienced, than the savage cares for the searing of his own
hands by grasping the hot pincers with which he tears the flesh of his
captive enemy.

At length, however, the haughty lord, like a deer that turns to bay,
gave intimation that his patience was failing. "Madam," he said, "I have
been much to blame--more than even your just resentment has expressed.
Yet, madam, let me say that my guilt, if it be unpardonable, was not
unprovoked, and that if beauty and condescending dignity could seduce
the frail heart of a human being, I might plead both as the causes of my
concealing this secret from your Majesty."

The Queen was so much struck with this repl