d heart and health, his favourite and wonted exercise. Who has
dared put other thoughts into your head?"

"Oh, no one, my lord, no one," said the Countess, something alarmed at
the tone, in which the question was put; "but yet, my lord, I would fain
be assured by mine own eyesight that my father is well."

"Be contented, Amy; thou canst not now have communication with thy
father or his house. Were it not a deep course of policy to commit no
secret unnecessarily to the custody of more than must needs be, it were
sufficient reason for secrecy that yonder Cornish man, yonder Trevanion,
or Tressilian, or whatever his name is, haunts the old knight's house,
and must necessarily know whatever is communicated there."

"My lord," answered the Countess, "I do not think it so. My father has
been long noted a worthy and honourable man; and for Tressilian, if
we can pardon ourselves the ill we have wrought him, I will wager the
coronet I am to share with you one day that he is incapable of returning
injury for injury."

"I will not trust him, however, Amy," said her husband--"by my honour,
I will not trust him, I would rather the foul fiend intermingle in our
secret than this Tressilian!"

"And why, my lord?" said the Countess, though she shuddered slightly at
the tone of determination in which he spoke; "let me but know why you
think thus hardly of Tressilian?"

"Madam," replied the Earl, "my will ought to be a sufficient reason. If
you desire more, consider how this Tressilian is leagued, and with whom.
He stands high in the opinion of this Radcliffe, this Sussex, against
whom I am barely able to maintain my ground in the opinion of our
suspicious mistress; and if he had me at such advantage, Amy, as to
become acquainted with the tale of our marriage, before Elizabeth were
fitly prepared, I were an outcast from her grace for ever--a bankrupt at
once in favour and in fortune, perhaps, for she hath in her a touch of
her father Henry--a victim, and it may be a bloody one, to her offended
and jealous resentment."

"But why, my lord," again urged his lady, "should you deem thus
injuriously of a man of whom you know so little? What you do know
of Tressilian is through me, and it is I who assure you that in no
circumstances will be betray your secret. If I did him wrong in your
behalf, my lord, I am now the more concerned you should do him justice.
You are offended at my speaking of him, what would you say had I
actually myself