“And in this sense, and no other, hath he been accessory to thy fault?” said Elizabeth.

“Surely, madam, in no other,” replied Varney; “but since somewhat hath chanced to him, he can scarce be called his own man.  Look at him, madam, how pale and trembling he stands! how unlike his usual majesty of manner!—­yet what has he to fear from aught I can say to your Highness?  Ah! madam, since he received that fatal packet!”

“What packet, and from whence?” said the Queen eagerly.

“From whence, madam, I cannot guess; but I am so near to his person that I know he has ever since worn, suspended around his neck and next to his heart, that lock of hair which sustains a small golden jewel shaped like a heart.  He speaks to it when alone—­he parts not from it when he sleeps—­no heathen ever worshipped an idol with such devotion.”

“Thou art a prying knave to watch thy master so closely,” said Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; “and a tattling knave to tell over again his fooleries.—­What colour might the braid of hair be that thou pratest of?”

Varney replied, “A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the golden web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler than even the purest gold—­more like the last parting sunbeam of the softest day of spring.”

“Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney,” said the Queen, smiling.  “But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare metaphors.  Look round these ladies—­is there”—­(she hesitated, and endeavoured to assume an air of great indifference)—­“is there here, in this presence, any lady, the colour of whose hair reminds thee of that braid?  Methinks, without prying into my Lord of Leicester’s amorous secrets, I would fain know what kind of locks are like the thread of Minerva’s web, or the—­what was it?—­the last rays of the May-day sun.”

Varney looked round the presence-chamber, his eye travelling from one lady to another, until at length it rested upon the Queen herself, but with an aspect of the deepest veneration.  “I see no tresses,” he said, “in this presence, worthy of such similies, unless where I dare not look on them.”

“How, sir knave?” said the Queen; “dare you intimate—­”

“Nay, madam,” replied Varney, shading his eyes with his hand, “it was the beams of the May-day sun that dazzled my weak eyes.”

“Go to—­go to,” said the Queen; “thou art a foolish fellow”—­and turning quickly from him she walked up to Leicester.

Intense curiosity, mingled with all the various hopes, fears, and passions which influence court faction, had occupied the presence-chamber during the Queen’s conference with Varney, as if with the strength of an Eastern talisman.  Men suspended every, even the slightest external motion, and would have ceased to breathe, had Nature permitted such an intermission of her functions.  The atmosphere was contagious, and Leicester, who saw all around wishing or fearing