Besides, I had not these proofs until this very morning, when Anthony Foster's sudden arrival with the examinations and declarations, which he had extorted from the innkeeper Gosling and others, explained the manner of her flight from Cumnor Place, and my own researches discovered the steps which she had taken here." "Now, may God be praised for the light He has given! so full, so satisfactory, that there breathes not a man in England who shall call my proceeding rash, or my revenge unjust .-- And yet, Varney, so young, so fair, so fawning, and so false! Hence, then, her hatred to thee, my trusty, my well-beloved servant, because you withstood her plots, and endangered her paramour's life!" "I never gave her any other cause of dislike, my lord," replied Varney.
"But she knew that my counsels went directly to diminish her influence with your lordship; and that I was, and have been, ever ready to peril my life against your enemies." "It is too, too apparent," replied Leicester "yet with what an air of magnanimity she exhorted me to commit my head to the Queen's mercy, rather than wear the veil of falsehood a moment longer! Methinks the angel of truth himself can have no such tones of high-souled impulse.
Can it be so, Varney ?--can falsehood use thus boldly the language of truth ?--can infamy thus assume the guise of purity?
Varney, thou hast been my servant from a child.

I have raised thee high--can raise thee higher.

Think, think for me!--thy brain was ever shrewd and piercing--may she not be innocent?
Prove her so, and all I have yet done for thee shall be as nothing--nothing, in comparison of thy recompense!" The agony with which his master spoke had some effect even on the hardened Varney, who, in the midst of his own wicked and ambitious designs, really loved his patron as well as such a wretch was capable of loving anything.

But he comforted himself, and subdued his self-reproaches, with the reflection that if he inflicted upon the Earl some immediate and transitory pain, it was in order to pave his way to the throne, which, were this marriage dissolved by death or otherwise, he deemed Elizabeth would willingly share with his benefactor.

He therefore persevered in his diabolical policy; and after a moment's consideration, answered the anxious queries of the Earl with a melancholy look, as if he had in vain sought some exculpation for the Countess; then suddenly raising his head, he said, with an expression of hope, which instantly communicated itself to the countenance of his patron--"Yet wherefore, if guilty, should she have perilled herself by coming hither?
Why not rather have fled to her father's, or elsewhere ?--though that, indeed, might have interfered with her desire to be acknowledged as Countess of Leicester." "True, true, true!" exclaimed Leicester, his transient gleam of hope giving way to the utmost bitterness of feeling and expression; "thou art not fit to fathom a woman's depth of wit, Varney.