CHAPTER XXI

SIR DAVID WOOD Across the serenity of those blissful days for Lady Essex, days in which she sunned herself in the high hopes of the fulfilment of the love that was her life, there fell, to chill her, the shadow of Sir Thomas Overbury. Rochester in his trouble of mind exposed to her the perils to which Sir Thomas had drawn his attention. It was weak in him to afflict her with fears which might never be realised; but he justified himself by the reflection that these perils threatened her as closely as they threatened…