Leicester sighed, and was silent for a moment, ere he replied.

“Varney, I think thou art true to me, and I will tell thee all.  I do not stand where I did.  I have spoken to Elizabeth—­under what mad impulse I know not—­on a theme which cannot be abandoned without touching every female feeling to the quick, and which yet I dare not and cannot prosecute.  She can never, never forgive me for having caused and witnessed those yieldings to human passion.”

“We must do something, my lord,” said Varney, “and that speedily.”

“There is nought to be done,” answered Leicester, despondingly.  “I am like one that has long toiled up a dangerous precipice, and when he is within one perilous stride of the top, finds his progress arrested when retreat has become impossible.  I see above me the pinnacle which I cannot reach—­beneath me the abyss into which I must fall, as soon as my relaxing grasp and dizzy brain join to hurl me from my present precarious stance.”

“Think better of your situation, my lord,” said Varney; “let us try the experiment in which you have but now acquiesced.  Keep we your marriage from Elizabeth’s knowledge, and all may yet be well.  I will instantly go to the lady myself.  She hates me, because I have been earnest with your lordship, as she truly suspects, in opposition to what she terms her rights.  I care not for her prejudices—­she shall listen to me; and I will show her such reasons for yielding to the pressure of the times that I doubt not to bring back her consent to whatever measures these exigencies may require.”

“No, Varney,” said Leicester; “I have thought upon what is to be done, and I will myself speak with Amy.”

It was now Varney’s turn to feel upon his own account the terrors which he affected to participate solely on account of his patron.  “Your lordship will not yourself speak with the lady?”

“It is my fixed purpose,” said Leicester.  “Fetch me one of the livery-cloaks; I will pass the sentinel as thy servant.  Thou art to have free access to her.”

“But, my lord—­”

“I will have no BUTS,” replied Leicester; “it shall be even thus, and not otherwise.  Hunsdon sleeps, I think, in Saintlowe’s Tower.  We can go thither from these apartments by the private passage, without risk of meeting any one.  Or what if I do meet Hunsdon? he is more my friend than enemy, and thick-witted enough to adopt any belief that is thrust on him.  Fetch me the cloak instantly.”

Varney had no alternative save obedience.  In a few minutes Leicester was muffled in the mantle, pulled his bonnet over his brows, and followed Varney along the secret passage of the Castle which communicated with Hunsdon’s apartments, in which there was scarce a chance of meeting any inquisitive person, and hardly light enough for any such to have satisfied their curiosity.  They emerged at a door where Lord Hunsdon had, with military precaution, placed a sentinel, one of his own northern retainers as it fortuned, who readily admitted Sir Richard Varney and his attendant, saying only, in his northern dialect, “I would, man, thou couldst make the mad lady be still yonder; for her moans do sae dirl through my head that I would rather keep watch on a snowdrift, in the wastes of Catlowdie.”