the Queen's
partial indulgence, which she hath extended towards you in a degree
far beyond her nature, she had never given you the opportunity to atone
for."

"Have I indeed been so negligent?" said Leicester, as one who awakes
from a dream. "I thought I had coloured it well. But fear nothing, my
mind is now eased--I am calm. My horoscope shall be fulfilled; and that
it may be fulfilled, I will tax to the highest every faculty of my mind.
Fear me not, I say. I will to the Queen instantly--not thine own looks
and language shall be more impenetrable than mine. Hast thou aught else
to say?"

"I must crave your signet-ring," said Varney gravely, "in token to those
of your servants whom I must employ, that I possess your full authority
in commanding their aid."

Leicester drew off the signet-ring which he commonly used, and gave it
to Varney, with a haggard and stern expression of countenance, adding
only, in a low, half-whispered tone, but with terrific emphasis, the
words, "What thou dost, do quickly."

Some anxiety and wonder took place, meanwhile, in the presence-hall, at
the prolonged absence of the noble Lord of the Castle, and great was
the delight of his friends when they saw him enter as a man from whose
bosom, to all human seeming, a weight of care had been just removed.
Amply did Leicester that day redeem the pledge he had given to Varney,
who soon saw himself no longer under the necessity of maintaining a
character so different from his own as that which he had assumed in the
earlier part of the day, and gradually relapsed into the same grave,
shrewd, caustic observer of conversation and incident which constituted
his usual part in society.

With Elizabeth, Leicester played his game as one to whom her natural
strength of talent and her weakness in one or two particular points were
well known. He was too wary to exchange on a sudden the sullen personage
which he had played before he retired with Varney; but on approaching
her it seemed softened into a melancholy, which had a touch of
tenderness in it, and which, in the course of conversing with Elizabeth,
and as she dropped in compassion one mark of favour after another to
console him, passed into a flow of affectionate gallantry, the most
assiduous, the most delicate, the most insinuating, yet at the same time
the most respectful, with which a Queen was ever addressed by a subject.
Elizabeth listened as in a sort of enchantment. Her jealousy of power
was