ervation she smiled graciously, and stole her
eyes almost insensibly round to seek those of the Earl of Leicester, to
whom she now began to think she had spoken with hasty harshness upon the
unfounded suspicion of a moment.

The Queen's eye found the Earl in no mood to accept the implied offer
of conciliation. His own looks had followed, with late and rueful
repentance, the faded form which Hunsdon had just borne from the
presence. They now reposed gloomily on the ground, but more--so at least
it seemed to Elizabeth--with the expression of one who has received an
unjust affront, than of him who is conscious of guilt. She turned her
face angrily from him, and said to Varney, "Speak, Sir Richard, and
explain these riddles--thou hast sense and the use of speech, at least,
which elsewhere we look for in vain."

As she said this, she darted another resentful glance towards Leicester,
while the wily Varney hastened to tell his own story.

"Your Majesty's piercing eye," he said, "has already detected the cruel
malady of my beloved lady, which, unhappy that I am, I would not suffer
to be expressed in the certificate of her physician, seeking to conceal
what has now broken out with so much the more scandal."

"She is then distraught?" said the Queen. "Indeed we doubted not of
it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in a corner of
yonder grotto; and every word she spoke--which indeed I dragged from her
as by the rack--she instantly recalled and forswore. But how came she
hither? Why had you her not in safe-keeping?"

"My gracious Liege," said Varney, "the worthy gentleman under whose
charge I left her, Master Anthony Foster, has come hither but now, as
fast as man and horse can travel, to show me of her escape, which
she managed with the art peculiar to many who are afflicted with this
malady. He is at hand for examination."

"Let it be for another time," said the Queen. "But, Sir Richard, we envy
you not your domestic felicity; your lady railed on you bitterly, and
seemed ready to swoon at beholding you."

"It is the nature of persons in her disorder, so please your Grace,"
answered Varney, "to be ever most inveterate in their spleen against
those whom, in their better moments, they hold nearest and dearest."

"We have heard so, indeed," said Elizabeth, "and give faith to the
saying."

"May your Grace then be pleased," said Varney, "to command my
unfortunate wife to be delivered into the custody of her