Leicester was overpowered by his assumed superiority it seemed to the unfortunate Earl as if his last friend was about to abandon him.  He stretched his hand towards Varney as he uttered the words, “Do not leave me.  What wouldst thou have me do?”

“Be thyself, my noble master,” said Varney, touching the Earl’s hand with his lips, after having respectfully grasped it in his own; “be yourself, superior to those storms of passion which wreck inferior minds.  Are you the first who has been cozened in love—­the first whom a vain and licentious woman has cheated into an affection, which she has afterwards scorned and misused?  And will you suffer yourself to be driven frantic because you have not been wiser than the wisest men whom the world has seen?  Let her be as if she had not been—­let her pass from your memory, as unworthy of ever having held a place there.  Let your strong resolve of this morning, which I have both courage, zeal, and means enough to execute, be like the fiat of a superior being, a passionless act of justice.  She hath deserved death—­let her die!”

While he was speaking, the Earl held his hand fast, compressed his lips hard, and frowned, as if he laboured to catch from Varney a portion of the cold, ruthless, and dispassionate firmness which he recommended.  When he was silent, the Earl still continued to rasp his hand, until, with an effort at calm decision, he was able to articulate, “Be it so—­she dies!  But one tear might be permitted.”

“Not one, my lord,” interrupted Varney, who saw by the quivering eye and convulsed cheek of his patron that he was about to give way to a burst of emotion—­“not a tear—­the time permits it not.  Tressilian must be thought of—­”

“That indeed is a name,” said the Earl, “to convert tears into blood.  Varney, I have thought on this, and I have determined—­neither entreaty nor argument shall move me—­Tressilian shall be my own victim.”

“It is madness, my lord; but you are too mighty for me to bar your way to your revenge.  Yet resolve at least to choose fitting time and opportunity, and to forbear him until these shall be found.”

“Thou shalt order me in what thou wilt,” said Leicester, “only thwart me not in this.”

“Then, my lord,” said Varney, “I first request of you to lay aside the wild, suspected, and half-frenzied demeanour which hath this day drawn the eyes of all the court upon you, and which, but for the Queen’s partial indulgence, which she hath extended towards you in a degree far beyond her nature, she had never given you the opportunity to atone for.”

“Have I indeed been so negligent?” said Leicester, as one who awakes from a dream.  “I thought I had coloured it well.  But fear nothing, my mind is now eased—­I am calm.  My horoscope shall be fulfilled; and that it may be fulfilled, I will tax to the highest every faculty of my mind.  Fear me not, I say.  I will to the Queen instantly—­not thine own looks and language shall be more impenetrable than mine.  Hast thou aught else to say?”