"No good, Master Richard Varney, I take not my place _there_, until my lord himself conducts me. I am for the present a disguised countess, and will not take dignity upon me, until authorized by him, from whom I derived it." In that brief sentence she knew her opportunity and seized it, for her glance followed her uplifted hand, mounted into the box, and, sweeping across the minister, dwelt for some seconds on the dark womanly countenance beside him, and then fastened upon the face of Mr. Laurance. Some whose seats were on that side of the house, and who chanced to have their lorgnettes levelled at her just then, saw a long shiver creep over her, as if a blast of cold air had blown down through the side scene, and a sudden spark blazed up in the dilating eyes, as a mirror flashes when a candle flame smites its cold dark surface; but not a muscle quivered in the fair proud face, and only the Varney at her side noticed that when the slight hand fell back it sought its mate with a quick groping motion, and the delicate fingers clutched each other till the nails grew purple. For fully a moment that burning gaze rested on the features that seemed to possess some subtle fascination for her, and wandering back to the wife, a shadowy smile hovered around the lips that were soon turned, away to answer Varney. As she moved in the direction of a window, to listen for the clatter of horse's hoofs, Mrs. Laurance whispered: "Is not she the loveliest creature you ever beheld? I never saw such superb eyes, they absolutely seemed to lighten just now. Cuthbert, did you only notice how she looked right at me? I daresay my solitaires attracted her attention--and no wonder, they are the largest in the house, and these actresses always have an eye to the very best jewellery. Of course it must have been my diamonds." From the moment when Amy Robsart entered, Cuthbert Laurance felt a strange magnetic thrill dart through every fibre of his frame; his sluggish pulse stirred, and as her mesmeric brown eyes, luminous, overmastering, met his, he drew his breath in quick gasps, and his heart in its rapid throbbing seemed to pour liquid fire into the bounding arteries. Some vague bewildering reminiscence danced through the clouded chambers of his brain, pointing like a mocking fiend now this way, then in an opposite direction; one instant assuring him that they had somewhere met before, the next torturing him with the triumphant taunt that he had hitherto never known any one half so lovely. Was it merely some lucky accident that had so unexpectedly brought them during that long flattering gaze thoroughly _en rapport?_ He no more heard his wife's hoarse whisper, than if a cyclone had whirled between them, and, leaning forward to catch the measured melody that floated from the countess's lips, a crimson glow fired his cheek as he caught the lofty words.