sort of couch, in an attitude of the deepest affliction, out of
which she was startled by the opening of the door. Size turned hastily
round, and fixing her eye on Varney, exclaimed, "Wretch! art thou come
to frame some new plan of villainy?"

Leicester cut short her reproaches by stepping forward and dropping his
cloak, while he said, in a voice rather of authority than of affection,
"It is with me, madam, you have to commune, not with Sir Richard
Varney."

The change effected on the Countess's look and manner was like magic.
"Dudley!" she exclaimed, "Dudley! and art thou come at last?" And with
the speed of lightning she flew to her husband, clung round his neck,
and unheeding the presence of Varney, overwhelmed him with caresses,
while she bathed his face in a flood of tears, muttering, at the
same time, but in broken and disjointed monosyllables, the fondest
expressions which Love teaches his votaries.

Leicester, as it seemed to him, had reason to be angry with his lady
for transgressing his commands, and thus placing him in the perilous
situation in which he had that morning stood. But what displeasure could
keep its ground before these testimonies of affection from a being so
lovely, that even the negligence of dress, and the withering effects
of fear, grief, and fatigue, which would have impaired the beauty of
others, rendered hers but the more interesting. He received and repaid
her caresses with fondness mingled with melancholy, the last of which
she seemed scarcely to observe, until the first transport of her own joy
was over, when, looking anxiously in his face, she asked if he was ill.

"Not in my body, Amy," was his answer.

"Then I will be well too. O Dudley! I have been ill!--very ill, since
we last met!--for I call not this morning's horrible vision a meeting.
I have been in sickness, in grief, and in danger. But thou art come, and
all is joy, and health, and safety!"

"Alas, Amy," said Leicester, "thou hast undone me!"

"I, my lord?" said Amy, her cheek at once losing its transient flush of
joy--"how could I injure that which I love better than myself?"

"I would not upbraid you, Amy," replied the Earl; "but are you not
here contrary to my express commands--and does not your presence here
endanger both yourself and me?"

"Does it, does it indeed?" she exclaimed eagerly; "then why am I here a
moment longer? Oh, if you knew by what fears I was urged to quit Cumnor
Place! But I will say nothing