thinks so to
make an end of Murray and his hatred."

Darnley clenched teeth and hands, tortured by the craftily administered
poison.

"What then? What is to do?" he cried,

Ruthven told him bluntly.

"That Bill must never pass. Parliament must never meet to pass it. You
are Her Grace's husband and King of Scots."

"In name!" sneered Darnley bitterly.

"The name will serve," said Ruthven. "In that name ye'll sign me a bond
of formal remission to Murray and his friends for all their actions and
quarrels, permitting their safe return to Scotland, and charging the
lieges to convoy them safely. Do that and leave the rest to us."

If Darnley hesitated at all, it was not because he perceived the irony
of the situation--that he himself, in secret opposition to the Queen,
should sign the pardon of those who had rebelled against her precisely
because she had taken him to husband. He hesitated because indecision
was inherent in his nature.

"And then?" he asked at last.

Ruthven's blood-injected eyes considered him stonily out of a livid,
gleaming face.

"Then, whether you reign with her or without her, reign you shall as
King o' Scots. I pledge myself to that, and I pledge those others, so
that we have the bond."

Darnley sat down to sign the death warrant of the Seigneur Davie.

It was the night of Saturday, the 9th of March.

A fire of pine logs burned fragrantly on the hearth of the small closet
adjoining the Queen's chamber, suffusing it with a sense of comfort,
the greater by contrast with the cheerlessness out of doors, where an
easterly wind swept down from Arthur's Seat and moaned its dismal way
over a snowclad world.

The lovely, golden-headed young queen supped with a little company of
intimates: her natural sister, the Countess of Argyll, the Commendator
of Holyrood, Beaton, the Master of the Household, Arthur Erskine, the
Captain of the Guard, and one other--that, David Rizzio, who from an
errant minstrel had risen to this perilous eminence, a man of a swarthy,
ill-favoured countenance redeemed by the intelligence that glowed in
his dark eyes, and of a body so slight and fragile as to seem almost
misshapen. His age was not above thirty, yet indifferent health, early
privation, and misfortune had so set their mark upon him that he had
all the appearance of a man of fifty. He was dressed with sombre
magnificence, and a jewel of great price smouldered upon the middle
finger of one of his slender, deli