"But if you were not capable," continued her husband, "of loving and esteeming at that age, I was; and I returned to England to claim you, full of affection, which, as you may suppose, was not diminished when I saw your beauty. I have now been here nearly two months; and I have tried, by every means within man's power, to win you to return the attachment I have felt. The effort has proved vain. I have learned to know that you are unworthy of my love; that, instead of that fair form containing a heart and mind as soft and beautiful as your looks, there is nothing within but a proud, angry spirit--selfish, and cold, and fierce;--a loathsome thing, that makes the glittering casket in which it is enshrined all poor and valueless. I therefore cast you off, madam; or, as you will term it, set you free to go whithersoever you will--to do whatsoever you please. Your uncle, of Northampton, will receive you, for my good Lord, your father, will not. From me you shall enjoy such an income as may befit the Countess of Essex. I give it in honour of my own name, and trust--but faintly--that you will never disgrace it. To-morrow, at daybreak, your equipage will be at the door to convey you back to London. You came down hither with me against your will; but, if I were to go back again with you, it would be against my own." "Oh, joy, joy!" cried the Countess, starting up and clasping her hands. "I am a slave no longer!" Her husband gave her one look of scorn and reprobation, and quitted the room. CHAPTER XXII. Shakespeare assured his hearers, in the age of which we are now writing, "the course of true love never did run smooth," and the assertion is certainly as true as a proverb. When Arabella Stuart retired to her chamber for the night, her heart was relieved of part of the load which her lover's apparently strange conduct had brought upon it; yet sufficient anxiety and grief remained in her mind, to give her ample subject for thought and sorrowful meditation. She was still a little angry, it must be confessed, that Seymour should even have doubted her--her, whose whole thoughts and affections had been with him during his absence. But yet, perhaps, there might be a certain sort of gratification, too, in her bosom, to see that his love for her still remained so powerful, that the least apprehension of losing her should change his whole nature, and render one, so uniformly kind, tender, and ardent,--cold, discourteous, and repulsive. It was a little triumph of its sort, which even Arabella's heart could not but be pleased with.