“Stand up, and let me go,” said Leicester, “or, by Heaven, I will pierce thee with my rapier! What hast thou to do to bar my way to revenge?”
“Much—much!” exclaimed the undaunted boy, “since my folly has been the cause of these bloody quarrels between you, and perchance of worse evils. Oh, if you would ever again enjoy the peace of an innocent mind, if you hope again to sleep in peace and unhaunted by remorse, take so much leisure as to peruse this letter, and then do as you list.”
While he spoke in this eager and earnest manner, to which his singular features and voice gave a goblin-like effect, he held up to Leicester a packet, secured with a long tress of woman's hair of a beautiful light-brown colour. Enraged as he was, nay, almost blinded with fury to see his destined revenge so strangely frustrated, the Earl of Leicester could not resist this extraordinary supplicant. He snatched the letter from his hand—changed colour as he looked on the superscription—undid with faltering hand the knot which secured it—glanced over the contents, and staggering back, would have fallen, had he not rested against the trunk of a tree, where he stood for an instant, his eyes bent on the letter, and his sword-point turned to the ground, without seeming to be conscious of the presence of an antagonist towards whom he had shown little mercy, and who might in turn have taken him at advantage. But for such revenge Tressilian was too noble-minded. He also stood still in surprise, waiting the issue of this strange fit of passion, but holding his weapon ready to defend himself in case of need against some new and sudden attack on the part of Leicester, whom he again suspected to be under the influence of actual frenzy. The boy, indeed, he easily recognized as his old acquaintance Dickon, whose face, once seen, was scarcely to be forgotten; but how he came hither at so critical a moment, why his interference was so energetic, and, above all, how it came to produce so powerful an effect upon Leicester, were questions which he could not solve.
But the letter was of itself powerful enough to work effects yet more wonderful. It was that which the unfortunate Amy had written to her husband, in which she alleged the reasons and manner of her flight from Cumnor Place, informed him of her having made her way to Kenilworth to enjoy his protection, and mentioned the circumstances which had compelled her to take refuge in Tressilian's apartment, earnestly requesting he would, without delay, assign her a more suitable asylum. The letter concluded with the most earnest expressions of devoted attachment and submission to his will in all things, and particularly respecting her situation and place of residence, conjuring him only that she might not be placed under the guardianship or restraint of Varney. The letter dropped from Leicester's hand when he had perused it. “Take my sword,” he said, “Tressilian, and pierce my heart, as I would but now have pierced yours!”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “you have done me great wrong, but something within my breast ever whispered that it was by egregious error.”
“Error, indeed!” said Leicester, and handed him the letter; “I have been made to believe a man of honour a villain, and the best and purest of creatures a false profligate.—Wretched boy, why comes this letter now, and where has the bearer lingered?”
“I dare not tell you, my lord,” said the boy, withdrawing, as if to keep beyond his reach; “but here comes one who was the messenger.”
Wayland at the same moment came up; and interrogated by Leicester, hastily detailed all the circumstances of his escape with Amy, the fatal practices which had driven her to flight, and her anxious desire to throw herself under the instant protection of her husband—pointing out the evidence of the domestics of Kenilworth, “who could not,” he observed, “but remember her eager inquiries after the Earl of Leicester on her first arrival.”
“The villains!” exclaimed Leicester; “but oh, that worst of villains, Varney!—and she is even now in his power!”
“But not, I trust in God,” said Tressilian, “with any commands of fatal import?”