Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/309

 counsel--your lordship may have noted it on Tressilian's hand--here it is. This fellow, this agent, makes his way to the place as a pedlar; holds conferences with the lady, and they make their escape together by night; rob a poor fellow of a horse by the way, such was their guilty haste, and at length reach this Castle, where the Countess of Leicester finds refuge--I dare not say in what place."

"Speak, I command thee," said Leicester--"speak, while I retain sense enough to hear thee."

"Since it must be so," answered Varney, "the lady resorted immediately to the apartment of Tressilian, where she remained many hours, partly in company with him, and partly alone. I told you Tressilian had a paramour in his chamber; I little dreamed that paramour was--"

"Amy, thou wouldst say," answered Leicester; "but it is false, false as the smoke of hell! Ambitious she may be--fickle and impatient--'tis a woman's fault; but false to me!--never, never. The proof--the proof of this!" he exclaimed hastily.

"Carrol, the Deputy Marshal, ushered her thither by her own desire, on yesterday afternoon; Lambourne and the Warder both found her there at an early hour this morning."

"Was Tressilian there with her?" said Leicester, in the same hurried tone.

"No, my lord. You may remember," answered Varney, "that he was that night placed with Sir Nicholas Blount, under a species of arrest."

"Did Carrol, or the other fellows, know who she was?" demanded Leicester.