"I never gave her any other cause of dislike, my lord," replied Varney.
"But she knew that my counsels went directly to diminish her influence
with your lordship; and that I was, and have been, ever ready to peril
my life against your enemies."
"It is too, too apparent," replied Leicester "yet with what an air of
magnanimity she exhorted me to commit my head to the Queen's mercy,
rather than wear the veil of falsehood a moment longer! Methinks the
angel of truth himself can have no such tones of high-souled impulse.
Can it be so, Varney?--can falsehood use thus boldly the language of
truth?--can infamy thus assume the guise of purity? Varney, thou hast
been my servant from a child. I have raised thee high--can raise
thee higher. Think, think for me!--thy brain was ever shrewd and
piercing--may she not be innocent? Prove her so, and all I have yet done
for thee shall be as nothing--nothing, in comparison of thy recompense!"
The agony with which his master spoke had some effect even on the
hardened Varney, who, in the midst of his own wicked and ambitious
designs, really loved his patron as well as such a wretch was capable
of loving anything. But he comforted himself, and subdued his
self-reproaches, with the reflection that if he inflicted upon the Earl
some immediate and transitory pain, it was in order to pave his way to
the throne, which, were this marriage dissolved by death or otherwise,
he deemed Elizabeth would willingly share with his benefactor. He
therefore persevered in his diabolical policy; and after a moment's
consideration, answered the anxious queries of the Earl with a
melancholy look, as if he had in vain sought some exculpation for the
Countess; then suddenly raising his head, he said, with an expression
of hope, which instantly communicated itself to the countenance of his
patron--"Yet wherefore, if guilty, should she have perilled herself
by coming hither? Why not rather have fled to her father's, or
elsewhere?--though that, indeed, might have interfered with her desire
to be acknowledged as Countess of Leicester."
"True, true, true!" exclaimed Leicester, his transient gleam of hope
giving way to the utmost bitterness of feeling and expression; "thou
art not fit to fathom a woman's depth of wit, Varney. I see it all. She
would not quit the estate and title of the wittol who had wedded her.
Ay, and if in my madness I had started into rebellion, or if the angry
Queen had taken my head, as she this morning threatened, the wealthy
dower which law would have assigned to the Countess Dowager of Leicester
had been no bad windfall to the beggarly Tressilian. Well might she
goad me on to danger, which could not end otherwise than profitably to
her,--Speak not for her, Varney! I will have her blood!"