The Countess laughed, and her young friend proceeded: "He, too, I doubt not, can find me a clergyman, who will do all that is needful. Will you, dear lady, prepare Arabella? for it may so happen, that I have no opportunity of speaking to her alone."

"All that shall be done," answered the Countess; "and I, too, will take care to fix upon some day when the Court shall have business on its hands; so that our proceedings be unwatched. However, you must both get out of the country as fast as possible. Are you prepared with means?'

"All is done," answered Seymour. "Lord Hertford gave me a thousand pounds to pay our first expenses; the ship is in the mouth of the river, only waiting for us to sail. Now, lady, I am ready," he continued, rising.

"Nay, take another cup of wine," said the Countess; "have the priest, with a friend, prepared at Greenwich, and leave all the rest to me."

Seymour promised, with right good will, to fail in nothing that depended on him; and then, taking his leave of Lady Shrewsbury, he bade farewell to the Earl and Sir Harry West, mounted on his horse, and, followed by one servant, rode away across the country. So far the scheme proved successful: he reached Hertford in time to despatch a note to Lord Salisbury that night; and no one in the Court suspected that he had been in Buckinghamshire for many a month. Even Arabella herself heard on the following morning that he had been seen during the preceding evening, at a great distance from the spot where she had fancied he must be, and concluded that he must have obtained intelligence of Overbury's visit to Malvoisie.

[CHAPTER XXVII.]

There was a grand pageant at the Court, on some one of those many occasions which, in that day, afforded the excuse for revelling and merriment, not of the most refined and intellectual kind. The morning had passed in tilting; there was a masque and dancing in the evening; and all the state rooms of the old palace at Greenwich had been thrown open, for the reception of guests invited from London and the neighbourhood, and for the multitude of noble persons, who usually thronged the royal residence.

There was music and dancing going on in the great hall; and beyond, through a vista of rooms and corridors, groups were seen moving about, glittering in all the splendid costume of that day; while the faces of servants and attendants might be caught peeping in at doorways and open windows, or hurrying about, either carrying refreshments to those who needed them, or to prepare for a grand banquet in the farthest hall of the suite, with which the pleasures of the night were to close.

Arabella Stuart, who had been dancing, in order not to seem unlike the rest, now stood in the group near the Queen; and to say the truth, although William Seymour was not present, she looked gayer and more cheerful than she had done for several days. Nor was the brightness of her aspect assumed, as had been too frequently the case in her short life; but it had a cause in the conduct of others. It was not that any particular attention or kindness had been shown to her, but rather the reverse; for she was well inclined to be as little noticed as possible. The truth is, however, that a scene was taking place before her eyes, which, however much it might offend the pure delicacy of her feelings, relieved her from a great apprehension.

Twice since she had been at the palace, Sir Thomas Overbury had found occasion to hint at Lord Rochester's suit; and although she had been but once seen by that personage himself, she had dreaded, when she entered the hall, that she might be the object of painful attentions. He was now before her, however, and seemed scarcely to know that she was in the room. His whole thoughts, his whole feelings, his looks, his conversation were absorbed by the bright and beautiful Countess of Essex; and never, perhaps, on any occasion was such a wild and shameless display of illicit love offered to the eyes of a multitude, as was now afforded by those two unhappy people.