“O God, forgive us!” replied Foster.

“Why, thou fool,” said Varney, “thy toil is ended, and thy reward secure.  Look down into the vault—­what seest thou?”

“I see only a heap of clothes, like a snowdrift,” said Foster.  “O God, she moves her arm!”

“Hurl something down on her.”

“Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!” replied Foster.  “There needs nothing more—­she is gone!”

“So pass our troubles,” said Varney; “I dreamed not I could have mimicked the earl’s call so well.”

While they were at this consultation Tressilian and Raleigh broke in upon them.  Foster fled at their entrance, and escaped all search.  He perished miserably in a secret passage, behind an iron door, forgetting the key of the spring-clock, and years later his skeleton was discovered.

But Varney was taken on the spot.  He made very little mystery either of the crime or of its motives—­alleging that there was sufficient against him to deprive him of Leicester’s confidence, and to destroy all his towering plans of ambition.  “I was not born,” he said, “to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my fate shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd.”

That night he swallowed a small quantity of strong poison, which he carried about his person, and next morning was found dead in his cell.

The news of the countess’s dreadful fate put a sudden stop to the pleasures of Kenilworth.  Leicester retired from court, and for a considerable time abandoned himself to his remorse.  But as Varney in his last declaration had been studious to spare the character of his patron, the earl was the object rather of compassion than resentment.  The queen at length recalled him to court; he was once more distinguished as a statesman and favourite; and the rest of his career is well known to history.  But there was something retributive in his death, for it is believed he died by swallowing a draught of poison, designed by him for another person.

Tressilian at length embarked with his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, for the Virginia expedition, and young in years, but old in grief, died before his day in that foreign land.

* * * * *

Old Mortality

“Old Mortality” and the “Black Dwarf” were published together as the first series of the “Tales of My Landlord” on December 1, 1816.  The first is certainly one of the best of Scott’s historical romances.  It was the fourth of the “Waverley Novels,” and the authorship was still unavowed; though Mr. Murray, the publisher, at once declared it “must be written either by Walter Scott or the Devil.”  On the other hand, there were critics who did not believe the book was Sir Walter’s because it lacked his “tedious descriptions.”  Some said openly it was the work of several hands.  The study of the fierce, fanatical Covenanters