Favorite of a queen, he must now stoop to set a trap for the ruin of as simple a soul as ever stepped upon the soil of England; and his dark purposes had not even the excuse of necessity on the one hand, of love or passion on the other. An insane jealousy of the place the girl had won in the consideration of the Queen, of her lover who, he thought, had won a still higher place in the same influence, was his only motive for action at first. His cruelty was not redeemed even by the sensuous interest the girl might arouse in a reckless nature by her beauty and her charm.
So the great Leicester—the Gypsy, as the dead Sussex had called him—lay in wait in Greenwich Park for Angèle to pass, like some orchard-thief in the blossoming trees. Knowing the path by which she would come to her father’s cottage from the palace, he had placed himself accordingly. He had thought he might have to wait long or come often for the perfect opportunity; but it seemed as if fate played his game for him, and that once again the fruit he would pluck should fall into his palm. Bright-eyed, and elated from a long talk with the Duke’s Daughter, who had given her a message from the Queen, Angèle had abstractedly taken the wrong path in the wood. Leicester saw that it would lead her into the maze some distance off. Making a détour, he met her at the moment she discovered her mistake. The light from the royal word her friend had brought was still in her face; but it was crossed by perplexity now.
He stood still, as though astonished at seeing her, a smile upon his face. So perfectly did he play his part that she thought the meeting accidental; and though in her heart she had a fear of the man, and knew how bitter an enemy he was of Michel’s, his urbane power, his skilful diplomacy of courtesy had its way. These complicated lives, instinct with contradiction, have the interest of forbidden knowledge. The dark experiences of life leave their mark, and give such natures that touch of mystery which allures even those who have high instincts and true feelings, as one peeps over a hidden depth and wonders what lies beyond the dark. So Angèle, suddenly arrested, was caught by the sense of mystery in the man, by the fascination of finesse, of dark power; and it was womanlike that all on an instant she should dream of the soul of goodness in things evil.
Thus in life we are often surprised out of long years of prejudice, and even of dislike and suspicion, by some fortuitous incident, which might have chanced to two who had every impulse towards each other, not such antagonisms as lay between Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and this Huguenot refugee. She had every cue to hate him. Each moment of her life in England had been beset with peril because of him—peril to the man she loved, therefore peril to herself. And yet, so various is the nature of woman that, while steering straitly by one star, she levies upon the light of other stars. Faithful and sincere, yet loving power, curious and adventurous, she must needs, without intention, without purpose, stray into perilous paths.
As Leicester stepped suddenly into Angèle’s gaze, she was only, as it were, conscious of a presence in itself alluring by virtue of the history surrounding it. She was surprised out of an instinctive dislike, and the cue she had to loathe him was for the moment lost.
Unconsciously, unintentionally, she smiled at him now, then, realizing, retreated, shrinking from him, her face averted. Man or woman had found in Leicester the delicate and intrepid gamester, exquisite in the choice of detail, masterful in the breadth of method. And now, as though his whole future depended on this interview, he brought to bear a life-long skill to influence her. He had determined to set the Queen against her. He did not know—not even he—that she had saved the Queen’s life on that auspicious May Day when Harry Lee had fought the white knight, Michel de la Forêt, and halved the honors of the lists with him. If he had but known that the Queen had hid from him this fact—this vital thing touching herself and England—he would have viewed his future with a vaster distrust. But there could be no surer sign of Elizabeth’s growing coldness and intended breach than that she had hid from him the dreadful incident of the poisoned glove and the swift execution of the would-be murderer, and had made Cecil her only confidant. But he did know that Elizabeth herself had commanded Michel de la Forêt to the lists; and his mad jealousy impelled him to resort to a satanic cunning towards these two fugitives, who seemed to have mounted within a few short days as far as had he in thrice as many years to a high place in the regard of the Majesty of England.
To disgrace them both, to sow distrust of the girl in the Queen’s mind; to make her seem the opposite of what she was; to drop in her own mind suspicion of her lover; to drive her to some rash act, some challenge of the Queen herself—that was his plan. He knew how little Elizabeth’s imperious spirit would brook any challenge from this fearless girl concerning De la Forêt. But to convince her that the Queen favored Michel in some shadowed sense, that De la Forêt was privy to a dark compact—so deep a plot was all worthy of a larger end. He had well inspired the court of France through its ambassador to urge the Medici to press actively and bitterly for De la Forêt’s return to France, and to the beheading sword that waited for him; and his task had been made light by international difficulties, which made the heart of Elizabeth’s foreign policy friendship with France and an alliance against Philip of Spain. She had, therefore, opened up, even in the past few days, negotiations once again for the long-talked-of marriage with the Duke of Anjou, the brother of the King, son of the Medici. State policy was involved, and, if De la Forêt might be a counter, the pledge of exchange in the game, as it were, the path would once more be clear.
He well believed that Elizabeth’s notice of De la Forêt was but a fancy that would pass, as a hundred times before such fancies had come and gone; but against that brighter prospect there lay the fact that never before had she shown himself such indifference. In the past she had raged against him, she had imprisoned him, she had driven him from her presence in her anger, but always her paroxysms of rage had been succeeded by paroxysms of tenderness. Now he saw a colder light in the sky, a grayer horizon met his eye. So at every corner of the compass he played for the breaking of the spell.