"Carrol, the Deputy Marshal, ushered her thither by her own desire, on
yesterday afternoon; Lambourne and the Warder both found her there at an
early hour this morning."
"Was Tressilian there with her?" said Leicester, in the same hurried
tone.
"No, my lord. You may remember," answered Varney, "that he was that
night placed with Sir Nicholas Blount, under a species of arrest."
"Did Carrol, or the other fellows, know who she was?" demanded
Leicester.
"No, my lord," replied Varney; "Carrol and the Warder had never seen the
Countess, and Lambourne knew her not in her disguise. But in seeking
to prevent her leaving the cell, he obtained possession of one of her
gloves, which, I think, your lordship may know."
He gave the glove, which had the Bear and Ragged Staff, the Earl's
impress, embroidered upon it in seed-pearls.
"I do--I do recognize it," said Leicester. "They were my own gift. The
fellow of it was on the arm which she threw this very day around my
neck!" He spoke this with violent agitation.
"Your lordship," said Varney, "might yet further inquire of the lady
herself respecting the truth of these passages."
"It needs not--it needs not," said the tortured Earl; "it is written
in characters of burning light, as if they were branded on my very
eyeballs! I see her infamy-I can see nought else; and--gracious
Heaven!--for this vile woman was I about to commit to danger the lives
of so many noble friends, shake the foundation of a lawful throne, carry
the sword and torch through the bosom of a peaceful land, wrong the
kind mistress who made me what I am, and would, but for that hell-framed
marriage, have made me all that man can be! All this I was ready to do
for a woman who trinkets and traffics with my worst foes!--And thou,
villain, why didst thou not speak sooner?"
"My lord," said Varney, "a tear from my lady would have blotted out
all I could have said. Besides, I had not these proofs until this very
morning, when Anthony Foster's sudden arrival with the examinations
and declarations, which he had extorted from the innkeeper Gosling and
others, explained the manner of her flight from Cumnor Place, and my own
researches discovered the steps which she had taken here."
"Now, may God be praised for the light He has given! so full, so
satisfactory, that there breathes not a man in England who shall call
my proceeding rash, or my revenge unjust.--And yet, Varney, so young,
so fair, so fawning, and so false! Hence, then, her hatred to thee, my
trusty, my well-beloved servant, because you withstood her plots, and
endangered her paramour's life!"