“An it please your Grace,” said Varney, still on his knees, “I dared not do so, for her father had promised her hand to a gentleman of birth and honour—­I will do him justice, though I know he bears me ill-will—­one Master Edmund Tressilian, whom I now see in the presence.”

“Soh!” replied the Queen.  “And what was your right to make the simple fool break her worthy father’s contract, through your love passages, as your conceit and assurance terms them?”

“Madam,” replied Varney, “it is in vain to plead the cause of human frailty before a judge to whom it is unknown, or that of love to one who never yields to the passion”—­he paused an instant, and then added, in a very low and timid tone—­“which she inflicts upon all others.”

Elizabeth tried to frown, but smiled in her own despite, as she answered, “Thou art a marvellously impudent knave.  Art thou married to the girl?”

Leicester’s feelings became so complicated and so painfully intense, that it seemed to him as if his life was to depend on the answer made by Varney, who, after a moment’s real hesitation, answered, “Yes.”

“Thou false villain!” said Leicester, bursting forth into rage, yet unable to add another word to the sentence which he had begun with such emphatic passion.

“Nay, my lord,” said the Queen, “we will, by your leave, stand between this fellow and your anger.  We have not yet done with him.—­Knew your master, my Lord of Leicester, of this fair work of yours?  Speak truth, I command thee, and I will be thy warrant from danger on every quarter.”

“Gracious madam,” said Varney, “to speak Heaven’s truth, my lord was the cause of the whole matter.”

“Thou villain, wouldst thou betray me?” said Leicester.

“Speak on,” said the Queen hastily, her cheek colouring, and her eyes sparkling, as she addressed Varney—­“speak on.  Here no commands are heard but mine.”

“They are omnipotent, gracious madam,” replied Varney; “and to you there can be no secrets.—­Yet I would not,” he added, looking around him, “speak of my master’s concerns to other ears.”

“Fall back, my lords,” said the Queen to those who surrounded her, “and do you speak on.  What hath the Earl to do with this guilty intrigue of thine?  See, fellow, that thou beliest him not!”

“Far be it from me to traduce my noble patron,” replied Varney; “yet I am compelled to own that some deep, overwhelming, yet secret feeling hath of late dwelt in my lord’s mind, hath abstracted him from the cares of the household which he was wont to govern with such religious strictness, and hath left us opportunities to do follies, of which the shame, as in this case, partly falls upon our patron.  Without this, I had not had means or leisure to commit the folly which has drawn on me his displeasure—­the heaviest to endure by me which I could by any means incur, saving always the yet more dreaded resentment of your Grace.”