Tressilian told his story generously, suppressing as much as he could what affected Leicester, and saying nothing of their having twice actually fought together.  It is very probable that, in doing so, he did the Earl good service; for had the Queen at that instant found anything on account of which she could vent her wrath upon him, without laying open sentiments of which she was ashamed, it might have fared hard with him.  She paused when Tressilian had finished his tale.

“We will take that Wayland,” she said, “into our own service, and place the boy in our Secretary office for instruction, that he may in future use discretion towards letters.  For you, Tressilian, you did wrong in not communicating the whole truth to us, and your promise not to do so was both imprudent and undutiful.  Yet, having given your word to this unhappy lady, it was the part of a man and a gentleman to keep it; and on the whole, we esteem you for the character you have sustained in this matter.—­My Lord of Leicester, it is now your turn to tell us the truth, an exercise to which you seem of late to have been too much a stranger.”

Accordingly, she extorted, by successive questions, the whole history of his first acquaintance with Amy Robsart—­their marriage—­his jealousy—­the causes on which it was founded, and many particulars besides.  Leicester’s confession, for such it might be called, was wrenched from him piecemeal, yet was upon the whole accurate, excepting that he totally omitted to mention that he had, by implication or otherwise, assented to Varney’s designs upon the life of his Countess.  Yet the consciousness of this was what at that moment lay nearest to his heart; and although he trusted in great measure to the very positive counter-orders which he had sent by Lambourne, it was his purpose to set out for Cumnor Place in person as soon as he should be dismissed from the presence of the Queen, who, he concluded, would presently leave Kenilworth.

But the Earl reckoned without his host.  It is true his presence and his communications were gall and wormwood to his once partial mistress.  But barred from every other and more direct mode of revenge, the Queen perceived that she gave her false suitor torture by these inquiries, and dwelt on them for that reason, no more regarding the pain which she herself experienced, than the savage cares for the searing of his own hands by grasping the hot pincers with which he tears the flesh of his captive enemy.

At length, however, the haughty lord, like a deer that turns to bay, gave intimation that his patience was failing.  “Madam,” he said, “I have been much to blame—­more than even your just resentment has expressed.  Yet, madam, let me say that my guilt, if it be unpardonable, was not unprovoked, and that if beauty and condescending dignity could seduce the frail heart of a human being, I might plead both as the causes of my concealing this secret from your Majesty.”