midnight
`` Heaven , '' he said , `` is at last favourable to me , and has put within my reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy -- who has inflicted on me this cruel agony . I will blame fate no more , since I am afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he means still further to practise on me , and then of at once convicting and punishing his villainy . To my task -- to my task ! I will not sink under it now , since midnight , at farthest , will bring me vengeance . '' While these reflections thronged through Leicester 's mind , he again made his way amid the obsequious crowd , which divided to give him passage , and resumed his place , envied and admired , beside the person of his Sovereign . But could the bosom of him thus admired and envied have been laid open before the inhabitants of that crowded hall , with all its dark thoughts of guilty ambition , blighted affection , deep vengeance , and conscious sense of meditated cruelty , crossing each other like spectres in the circle of some foul enchantress , which of them , from the most ambitious noble in the courtly circle down to the most wretched menial who lived by shifting of trenchers , would have desired to change characters with the favourite of Elizabeth , and the Lord of Kenilworth ? New tortures awaited him as soon as he had rejoined Elizabeth .