CHAPTER XXIX.
Now fare thee well, my master--if true service Be guerdon'd with hard looks, e'en cut the tow-line, And let our barks across the pathless flood Hold different courses--THE SHIPWRECK.
Tressilian walked into the outer yard of the Castle scarce knowing what to think of his late strange and most unexpected interview with Amy Robsart, and dubious if he had done well, being entrusted with the delegated authority of her father, to pass his word so solemnly to leave her to her own guidance for so many hours.

Yet how could he have denied her request--dependent as she had too probably rendered herself upon Varney?
Such was his natural reasoning.

The happiness of her future life might depend upon his not driving her to extremities; and since no authority of Tressilian's could extricate her from the power of Varney, supposing he was to acknowledge Amy to be his wife, what title had he to destroy the hope of domestic peace, which might yet remain to her, by setting enmity betwixt them?
Tressilian resolved, therefore, scrupulously to observe his word pledged to Amy, both because it had been given, and because, as he still thought, while he considered and reconsidered that extraordinary interview, it could not with justice or propriety have been refused.
In one respect, he had gained much towards securing effectual protection for this unhappy and still beloved object of his early affection.

Amy was no longer mewed up in a distant and solitary retreat under the charge of persons of doubtful reputation.

She was in the Castle of Kenilworth, within the verge of the Royal Court for the time, free from all risk of violence, and liable to be produced before Elizabeth on the first summons.