Here stands the victim--there the proud betrayer,
E'en as the hind pull'd down by strangling dogs
Lies at the hunter's feet--who courteous proffers
To some high dame, the Dian of the chase,
To whom he looks for guerdon, his sharp blade,
To gash the sobbing throat.
--THE WOODSMAN.

We are now to return to Mervyn's Bower, the apartment, or rather the
prison, of the unfortunate Countess of Leicester, who for some time kept
within bounds her uncertainty and her impatience. She was aware that, in
the tumult of the day, there might be some delay ere her letter could be
safely conveyed to the hands of Leicester, and that some time more might
elapse ere he could extricate himself from the necessary attendance on
Elizabeth, to come and visit her in her secret bower. "I will not expect
him," she said, "till night; he cannot be absent from his royal guest,
even to see me. He will, I know, come earlier if it be possible, but I
will not expect him before night." And yet all the while she did expect
him; and while she tried to argue herself into a contrary belief, each
hasty noise of the hundred which she heard sounded like the hurried step
of Leicester on the staircase, hasting to fold her in his arms.

The fatigue of body which Amy had lately undergone, with the agitation
of mind natural to so cruel a state of uncertainty, began by degrees
strongly to affect her nerves, and she almost feared her total inability
to maintain the necessary self-command through the scenes which might
lie before her. But although spoiled by an over-indulgent system of
education, Amy had naturally a mind of great power, united with a
frame which her share in her father's woodland exercises had rendered
uncommonly healthy. She summoned to her aid such mental and bodily
resources; and not unconscious how much the issue of her fate might
depend on her own self-possession, she prayed internally for strength of
body and for mental fortitude, and resolved at the same time to yield to
no nervous impulse which might weaken either.