great kindness is there between
Murray and you that, to save him from forfeiture, you run the risk of
being forfeited with him?"

"What I have done," he said, "I have done for others, and under a bond
that shall hold me scatheless."

"Under a bond?" said she, and now she looked up at Darnley, standing
ever at her side. "And was the bond yours, my lord?"

"Mme?" He started back. "I know naught of it."

But as he moved she saw something else. She leaned forward, pointing to
the empty sheath at his girdle.

"Where is your dagger, my lord?" she asked him sharply.

"My dagger? Ha! How should I know?"

"But I shall know!" she threatened, as if she were not virtually a
prisoner in the hands of these violent men who had invaded her palace
and dragged Rizzio from her side. "I shall not rest until I know!"

The Countess came in, white to the lips, bearing in her eyes something
of the horror she had beheld.

"What is it?" Mary asked her, her voice suddenly hushed and faltering.

"Madame-he is dead! Murdered!" she announced.

The Queen looked at her, her face of marble. Then her voice came hushed
and tense:

"Are--you sure?"

"Myself I saw his body, madame."

There was a long pause. A low moan escaped the Queen, and her lovely
eyes were filled with tears; slowly these coursed down her cheeks.
Something compelling in her grief hushed every voice, and the craven
husband at her side shivered as her glance fell upon him once more.

"And is it so?" she said at length, considering him. She dried her eyes.
"Then farewell tears; I must study revenge." She rose as if with labour,
and standing, clung a moment to the table's edge. A moment she looked at
Ruthven, who sat glooming there, dagger in one hand and empty wine-cup
in the other; then her glance passed on, and came to rest balefully
on Darnley's face. "You have had your will, my lord," she said, "but
consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest
until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently."

That said she staggered forward. The Countess hastened to her, and
leaning upon her arm, Mary passed through the little door of the closet
into her chamber.

That night the common bell was rung, and Edinburgh roused in alarm.
Bothwell, Huntly, Atholl, and others who were at Holyrood when Rizzio
was murdered, finding it impossible to go to the Queen's assistance, and
fearing to share the secretary's fate--for the palace was a-swarm with
the m