nical existence, hoped she had
forgotten a girl's evanescent fancy.

But the peculiar distinction showed by the earl to Warner confirmed
the reports circulated by Bungey,--"that he was, indeed, a fearful
nigromancer, who had much helped the earl in his emprise." The earl's
address to his guests in behalf both of Warner and Sibyll, the high
state accorded to the student, reached even the Sanctuary; for the
fugitives there easily contrived to learn all the gossip of the city.
Judge of the effect the tale produced upon the envious Bungey! judge of
the representations it enabled him to make to the credulous duchess! It
was clear now to Jacquetta as the sun in noonday that Warwick rewarded
the evil-predicting astrologer for much dark and secret service, which
Bungey, had she listened to him, might have frustrated; and she promised
the friar that, if ever again she had the power, Warner and the Eureka
should be placed at his sole mercy and discretion.

The friar himself, however, growing very weary of the dulness of the
Sanctuary, and covetous of the advantages enjoyed by Adam, began to
meditate acquiescence in the fashion of the day, and a transfer of his
allegiance to the party in power. Emboldened by the clemency of the
victors, learning that no rewards for his own apprehension had been
offered, hoping that the stout earl would forget or forgive the old
offence of the waxen effigies, and aware of the comparative security his
friar's gown and cowl afforded him, he resolved one day to venture
forth from his retreat. He even flattered himself that he could cajole
Adam--whom he really believed the possessor of some high and weird
secrets, but whom otherwise he despised as a very weak creature--into
forgiving his past brutalities, and soliciting the earl to take him into
favour.

At dusk, then, and by the aid of one of the subalterns of the Tower,
whom he had formerly made his friend, the friar got admittance
into Warner's chamber. Now it so chanced that Adam, having his own
superstitions, had lately taken it into his head that all the various
disasters which had befallen the Eureka, together with all the little
blemishes and defects that yet marred its construction, were owing to
the want of the diamond bathed in the mystic moonbeams, which his German
authority had long so emphatically prescribed; and now that a monthly
stipend far exceeding his wants was at his disposal, and that it became
him to do all possible honour to