to the talisman of a great queen's favor. She bade me, if hereafter I
should fall into her disgrace,--how deep soever, and whatever might be
the crime,--to convey this jewel to her sight, and it should plead for
me. Doubtless, with her piercing judgment, she had even then detected
the rashness of my nature, and foreboded some such deed as has now
brought destruction upon my bead. And knowing, too, her own hereditary
rigor, she designed, it may be, that the memory of gentler and kindlier
hours should soften her heart in my behalf, when my need should be the
greatest. I have doubted,--I have distrusted,--yet who can tell, even
now, what happy influence this ring might have?"

"You have delayed full long to show the ring, and plead her Majesty's
gracious promise," remarked the countess,--"your state being what it
is."

"True," replied the earl: "but for my honor's sake, I was loath to
entreat the queen's mercy, while I might hope for life, at least, from
the justice of the laws. If, on a trial by my peers, I had been
acquitted of meditating violence against her sacred life, then would I
have fallen at her feet, and presenting the jewel, have prayed no other
favor than that my love and zeal should be put to the severest test.
But now--it were confessing too much--it were cringing too low--to beg
the miserable gift of life, on no other score than the tenderness which
her Majesty deems one to have forfeited!"

"Yet it is your only hope," said the countess.

"And besides," continued Essex, pursuing his own reflections, "of what
avail will be this token of womanly feeling, when, on the other hand,
are arrayed the all-prevailing motives of state policy, and the