“Thou knowest it is!” replied Leicester. “What needs so fruitless a question?”
“Pardon me, my lord,” said Varney; “the use lies here. Men will wager their lands and lives in defence of a rich diamond, my lord; but were it not first prudent to look if there is no flaw in it?”
“What means this?” said Leicester, with eyes sternly fixed on his dependant; “of whom dost thou dare to speak?”
“It is—of the Countess Amy, my lord, of whom I am unhappily bound to speak; and of whom I WILL speak, were your lordship to kill me for my zeal.”
“Thou mayest happen to deserve it at my hand,” said the Earl; “but speak on, I will hear thee.”
“Nay, then, my lord, I will be bold. I speak for my own life as well as for your lordship's. I like not this lady's tampering and trickstering with this same Edmund Tressilian. You know him, my lord. You know he had formerly an interest in her, which it cost your lordship some pains to supersede. You know the eagerness with which he has pressed on the suit against me in behalf of this lady, the open object of which is to drive your lordship to an avowal of what I must ever call your most unhappy marriage, the point to which my lady also is willing, at any risk, to urge you.”
Leicester smiled constrainedly. “Thou meanest well, good Sir Richard, and wouldst, I think, sacrifice thine own honour, as well as that of any other person, to save me from what thou thinkest a step so terrible. But remember”—he spoke these words with the most stern decision—“you speak of the Countess of Leicester.”
“I do, my lord,” said Varney; “but it is for the welfare of the Earl of Leicester. My tale is but begun. I do most strongly believe that this Tressilian has, from the beginning of his moving in her cause, been in connivance with her ladyship the Countess.”
“Thou speakest wild madness, Varney, with the sober face of a preacher. Where, or how, could they communicate together?”
“My lord,” said Varney, “unfortunately I can show that but too well. It was just before the supplication was presented to the Queen, in Tressilian's name, that I met him, to my utter astonishment, at the postern gate which leads from the demesne at Cumnor Place.”