flourish in the light and warmth of her own favour, setting aside all
other small affections. So it was that she had sent Angele to her father
and kept De la Foret in the palace. Perplexed, troubled by new
developments, the birth of a son to Mary Queen of Scots, the demand of
her Parliament that she should marry, the pressure of foreign policy
which compelled her to open up again negotiations for marriage with the
Duke of Anjou--all these combined to detach her from the interest she had
suddenly felt in Angele. But, by instinct, she knew also that Leicester,
through jealousy, had increased the complication; and, fretful under the
long influence he had had upon her, she steadily lessened intercourse
with him. The duel he fought with Lempriere on May Day came to her ears
through the Duke's Daughter, and she seized upon it with sharp petulance.
First she ostentatiously gave housing and care to Lempriere, and went to
visit him; then, having refused Leicester audience, wrote to him.

"What is this I hear," she scrawled upon the paper, "that you have forced
a quarrel with the Lord of Rozel, and have well-ny ta'en his life! Is
swording then your dearest vice that you must urge it on a harmless
gentle man, and my visitor? Do you think you hold a charter of freedom
for your self-will? Have a care, Leicester, or, by God! you shall know
another sword surer than your own."

The rage of Leicester on receiving this knew no bounds; for though he had
received from Elizabeth stormy letters before, none had had in it the
cold irony of this missive. The cause of it? Desperation seized him.
With a mad disloyalty he read in every word of Elizabeth's letter, Michel
de la Foret, refugee. With madder fury he determined to strike for the
immediate ruin of De la Foret, and Angele with him--for had she not
thrice repulsed him as though he had been some village captain? After
the meeting in the maze he had kept his promise of visiting her "prison."