g herself before the Queen, embraced her knees, while
she exclaimed, "He is guiltless, madam--he is guiltless; no one can lay
aught to the charge of the noble Leicester!"

"Why, minion," answered the Queen, "didst not thou thyself say that the
Earl of Leicester was privy to thy whole history?"

"Did I say so?" repeated the unhappy Amy, laying aside every
consideration of consistency and of self-interest. "Oh, if I did, I
foully belied him. May God so judge me, as I believe he was never privy
to a thought that would harm me!"

"Woman!" said Elizabeth, "I will know who has moved thee to this; or
my wrath--and the wrath of kings is a flaming fire--shall wither and
consume thee like a weed in the furnace!"

As the Queen uttered this threat, Leicester's better angel called
his pride to his aid, and reproached him with the utter extremity
of meanness which would overwhelm him for ever if he stooped to take
shelter under the generous interposition of his wife, and abandoned
her, in return for her kindness, to the resentment of the Queen. He had
already raised his head with the dignity of a man of honour to avow
his marriage, and proclaim himself the protector of his Countess, when
Varney, born, as it appeared, to be his master's evil genius, rushed
into the presence with every mark of disorder on his face and apparel.

"What means this saucy intrusion?" said Elizabeth.

Varney, with the air of a man altogether overwhelmed with grief and
confusion, prostrated himself before her feet, exclaiming, "Pardon, my
Liege, pardon!--or at least let your justice avenge itself on me, where
it is due; but spare my noble, my generous, my innocent patron and
master!"

Amy, who was yet kneeling, started up as she saw the man whom she deemed
most odious place himself so near her, and was about to fly towards
Leicester, when, checked at once by the uncertainty and even timidity
which his looks had reassumed as soon as the appearance of his confidant
seemed to open a new scene, she hung back, and uttering a faint scream,
besought of her Majesty to cause her to be imprisoned in the lowest
dungeon of the Castle--to deal with her as the worst of criminals--"but
spare," she exclaimed, "my sight and hearing what will destroy the
little judgment I have left--the sight of that unutterable and most
shameless villain!"

"And why, sweetheart?" said the Queen, moved by a new impulse; "what
hath he, this false knight, since such thou accountest him,