like that of a screech-owl denouncing some deed of terror and of woe. She turned her eyes fearfully towards the door, almost as if she expected some sounds of horror to be heard, or some sight of fear to display itself. All, however, was as still as death, and the voices of those who spoke in the inner-chamber, were, if they spoke at all, carefully subdued to a tone which could not be heard in the next. At once, however, they were to speak fast, thick, and hastily; and presently after the voice of the countess was heard exclaiming, at the highest pitch to which indignation could raise it, "Undo the door, sir, I command you! Undo the door! I will have no other reply!" she continued, drowning with her vehement accents the low and muttered sounds which Varney was heard to utter betwixt whiles. "What, ho! without there!" she persisted, accompanying her words with shrieks, "Janet, alarm the house! Foster, break open the door!-I am detained here by a traitor! Use axe and lever, Master Foster I will be your warrant !" "It shall not need, madam," Varney was at length distinctly heard to say. "If you please to expose my lord's important concerns and your own to the general ear, I will not be your hindrance." The door was unlocked and thrown open, and Janet and her father rushed in, anxious to learn the cause of these reiterated exclamations. When they entered the apartment, Varney stood by the door grinding his teeth, with an expression in which rage, and shame, and fear, had each their share. The countess stood in the midst of her apartment, like a juvenile Pythoness, under the influence of the prophetic fury. The veins in her beautiful forehead started into swoln blue lines through the hurried im pulse of her articulation her cheek and neck glowed like scarlet her eyes were like those of an imprisoned eagle, flashing red lightning on the foes whom it cannot reach with its talons. Were it possible for one of the Graces to have been animated by a Fury, the countenance could not have united such beauty with so much hatred, scorn, defiance, and resentment. The gesture and attitude corresponded with the voice and looks, and altogether presented a spectacle which was at once beautiful and fearful; so much of the sublime had the energy of passion united with the Countess Amy's natural loveliness. Janet, as soon as the door was open, ran to her mistress; and more slowly, yet with more haste than he was wont, Anthony Foster went to Richard Varney. "In the Truth's name, what ails your ladyship ?" said the former. "What, in the name of Satan, have you done to her?" said Foster to his friend. "Who, I?—nothing," answered Varney, but with sunken head and sullen voice; 66 nothing but communicated to her her lord's commands, which, if the lady list not to obey, she knows better how to answer it than I may pretend to do." ❝ the "Now, by Heaven, Janet!" said the countess, false traitor lies in his throat! He must needs lie, for he speaks to the dishonour of my noble lord—he must needs lie doubly, for he speaks to gain ends of his own, equally execrable and unattainable." "You have misapprehended me, lady," said Varney, with a sulky species of submission and apology; "let this matter rest till your passion be abated, and I will explain all." "Thou shalt never have an opportunity to do so,” said the countess. "Look at him, Janet. - He is fairly dressed, hath the outside of a gentleman, and hither he came to persuade me it was my lord's pleasure - nay, more, my wedded lord's commands, that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and before the queen and nobles, and in presence of my own wedded lord, that I should acknowledge him - him there . that very cloak-brushing, shoe-cleaning fellow-him there, my lord's lacquey, for my liege lord and husband; furnishing against myself, great God! whenever I was to claim my right and my rank, such weapons as would hew my just claim from the root, and destroy my character to be regarded as an honourable matron of the English nobility!" "You hear her, Foster, and you, young maiden, hear this lady," answered Varney, taking advantage of the pause which the countess had made in her charge, more for lack of breath than for lack of mat"You hear that her heat only objects to me the course which our good lord, for the purpose to keep certain matters secret, suggests in the very letter which she holds in her hands." ter Foster here attempted to interfere with a face of authority, which he thought became the charge entrusted to him, “ Nay, lady, I must needs say you are hasty in this Such deceit is not utterly to be condemned when practised for a righteous end; and thus even the patriarch Abraham feigned Sarah to be his sister when they went down to Egypt." "Ay, sir, answered the countess; "but God rebuked that deceit even in the father of his chosen people, by the mouth of the heathen Pharaoh. Out upon you, that will read Scripture only to copy those things, which are held out to us as warnings, not as examples !" "But Sarah disputed not the will of her husband, "but an be it your pleasure," said Foster, in reply; did as Abraham commanded, calling herself his sister, that it might be well with her husband for her sake, and that his soul might live because of her beauty." 66 Now, so Heaven pardon me my useless anger," answered the countess, "thou art as daring a hypocrite as yonder fellow is an impudent deceiver. Never will I believe that the noble Dudley gave countenance to so dastardly, so dishonourable a plan. Thus I tread on his infamy, if his indeed it be, and thus destroy its remembrance for ever!" So saying, she tore in pieces Leicester's letter, and stamped, in the extremity of impatience, as if she would have annihilated the minute fragments into which she had rent it. "Bear witness," said Varney, collecting himself, "she has torn my lord's letter, in order to burthen me with the scheme of his devising; and although it promises nought but danger and trouble to me, she would lay it to my charge, as if I had any purpose of mine own in it." "Thou liest, thou treacherous slave!" said Countess Amy, in spite of Janet's attempts to keep her silent, in the sad foresight that her vehemence might only furnish arms against herself. "Thou liest," she con"Let me go, Janet-Were it the last word I have to speak, he lies he had his own foul ends to seek; and broader he would have displayed them, had my passion permitted me to preserve the silence which at first encouraged him to unfold his vile projects." tinued "Madam," said Varney, overwhelmed in spite of his effrontery," I entreat you to believe yourself mistaken." "As soon will I believe light darkness. Have I drank of oblivion? Do I not remember former pas sages, which, known to Leicester, had given thee the preferment of a gallows, instead of the honour of his intimacy. I would I were a man but for five minutes! It were space enough to make a craven like thee confess his villany. But go-begone-Tell thy master, that when I take the foul course to which such scandalous deceits as thou hast recommended on his behalf must necessarily lead me, I will give him a rival something worthy of the name. He shall not be supplanted by an ignominious lacquey, whose best fortune is to catch his master's last suit of clothes ere it is threadbare, and who is only fit to seduce a suburb-wench by the bravery of new roses in his master's old pantofles. Go, begone, sir-I scorn thee so much, that I am ashamed to have been angry with thee." Varney left the room with a mute expression of rage, and was followed by Foster, whose apprehension, naturally slow, was overpowered by the eager and abundant discharge of indignation, which, for the first time, he had heard burst from the lips of a being, who had seemed till that moment too languid, and too gentle, to nurse an angry thought, or utter an intemperate expression. Foster, therefore, pursued Varney from place to place, persecuting him with interrogatories, to which the other replied not, until they were in the opposite side of the quadrangle, and in the old library; with which the reader has already been made acquainted. Here he turned round on his persevering follower, and thus addressed him, in a tone tolerably equal; that brief walk having been sufficient to give one so habituated to command his temper, time to rally and recover his presence of mind. "Tony," he said, with his usual sneering laugh, "it avails not to deny it. The Woman and the Devil, who, as thine oracle Holdforth will confirm to thee, |
