“Edmund Tressilian of Cornwall,” answered the mask. “My tongue has been bound by a promise for four-and-twenty hours. The space is passed,—I now speak, and do your lordship the justice to address myself first to you.”
The thrill of astonishment which had penetrated to Leicester's very heart at hearing that name pronounced by the voice of the man he most detested, and by whom he conceived himself so deeply injured, at first rendered him immovable, but instantly gave way to such a thirst for revenge as the pilgrim in the desert feels for the water-brooks. He had but sense and self-government enough left to prevent his stabbing to the heart the audacious villain, who, after the ruin he had brought upon him, dared, with such unmoved assurance, thus to practise upon him further. Determined to suppress for the moment every symptom of agitation, in order to perceive the full scope of Tressilian's purpose, as well as to secure his own vengeance, he answered in a tone so altered by restrained passion as scarce to be intelligible, “And what does Master Edmund Tressilian require at my hand?”
“Justice, my lord,” answered Tressilian, calmly but firmly.
“Justice,” said Leicester, “all men are entitled to. YOU, Master Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be assured you shall have it.”
“I expect nothing less from your nobleness,” answered Tressilian; “but time presses, and I must speak with you to-night. May I wait on you in your chamber?”
“No,” answered Leicester sternly, “not under a roof, and that roof mine own. We will meet under the free cope of heaven.”
“You are discomposed or displeased, my lord,” replied Tressilian; “yet there is no occasion for distemperature. The place is equal to me, so you allow me one half-hour of your time uninterrupted.”
“A shorter time will, I trust, suffice,” answered Leicester. “Meet me in the Pleasance when the Queen has retired to her chamber.”
“Enough,” said Tressilian, and withdrew; while a sort of rapture seemed for the moment to occupy the mind of Leicester.
“Heaven,” he said, “is at last favourable to me, and has put within my reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy—who has inflicted on me this cruel agony. I will blame fate no more, since I am afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he means still further to practise on me, and then of at once convicting and punishing his villainy. To my task—to my task! I will not sink under it now, since midnight, at farthest, will bring me vengeance.”