nt, so
irresistibly overwhelming, that Elizabeth, after looking at him with
a wondering eye, and receiving no intelligible answer to the unusual
expressions of grace and affection which had escaped from her, shot her
quick glance around the circle of courtiers, and reading, perhaps, in
their faces something that accorded with her own awakened suspicions,
she said suddenly, "Or is there more in this than we see--or than you,
my lord, wish that we should see? Where is this Varney? Who saw him?"

"An it please your Grace," said Bowyer, "it is the same against whom I
this instant closed the door of the presence-room."

"An it please me?" repeated Elizabeth sharply, not at that moment in the
humour of being pleased with anything.--"It does NOT please me that he
should pass saucily into my presence, or that you should exclude from it
one who came to justify himself from an accusation."

"May it please you," answered the perplexed usher, "if I knew, in such
case, how to bear myself, I would take heed--"

"You should have reported the fellow's desire to us, Master Usher, and
taken our directions. You think yourself a great man, because but now we
chid a nobleman on your account; yet, after all, we hold you but as the
lead-weight that keeps the door fast. Call this Varney hither instantly.
There is one Tressilian also mentioned in this petition. Let them both
come before us."

She was obeyed, and Tressilian and Varney appeared accordingly. Varney's
first glance was at Leicester, his second at the Queen. In the looks
of the latter there appeared an approaching storm, and in the downcast
countenance of his patron he could read no directions in what way he
was to trim his vessel for the encounter. He then saw Tressilian, and
at once perceived the peril of the situation in which he was placed.
But Varney was as bold-faced and ready-witted as he was cunning and
unscrupulous--a skilful pilot in extremity, and fully conscious of the
advantages which he would obtain could he extricate Leicester from his
present peril, and of the ruin that yawned for himself should he fail in
doing so.

"Is it true, sirrah," said the Queen, with one of those searching looks
which few had the audacity to resist, "that you have seduced to infamy
a young lady of birth and breeding, the daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart of
Lidcote Hall?"

Varney kneeled down, and replied, with a look of the most profound
contrition, "There had been some love passages betw