"Take the ring," said the earl.

"Believe that it shall be in the queen's hands before the lapse of
another hour," replied the countess, as she received this sacred trust
of life and death. "To-morrow morning look for the result of my
intercession."

She departed. Again the earl's hopes rose high. Dreams visited his
slumber, not of the sable-decked scaffold in the Tower-yard, but of
canopies of state, obsequious courtiers, pomp, splendor, the smile of
the once more gracious queen, and a light beaming from the magic gem,
which illuminated his whole future.

History records how foully the Countess of Shrewsbury betrayed the
trust, which Essex, in his utmost need, confided to her. She kept the
ring, and stood in the presence of Elizabeth, that night, without one
attempt to soften her stern hereditary temper in behalf of the former
favorite. The next day the earl's noble head rolled upon the scaffold.
On her death-bed, tortured, at last, with a sense of the dreadful guilt
which she had taken upon her soul, the wicked countess sent for
Elizabeth, revealed the story of the ring, and besought forgiveness for
her treachery. But the queen, still obdurate, even while remorse for
past obduracy was tugging at her heart-strings, shook the dying woman in
her bed, as if struggling with death for the privilege of wreaking her
revenge and spite. The spirit of the countess passed away, to undergo
the justice, or receive the mercy, of a higher tribunal; and tradition
says, that the fatal ring was found upon her breast, where it had
imprinted a dark red circle, resembling the effect of the intensest
heat. The attendants, who prepared the body for burial, shuddered,
whispering one to another, that the ring must have derived its heat from