was white to the lips. As much by her vehement pretence of sincerity
as by the apparently irrefragable logic of her arguments, she forced
conviction upon him. This brought a loathly fear in its train, and the
gates of his heart stood ever wide to fear. He stepped aside to a chair,
and sank into it, looking at her with dilating eyes--a fool confronted
with the likely fruits of his folly.

"Then--then--why did they proffer me their help? How can they achieve
their ends this way?"

"How? Do you still ask? Do you not see what a blind tool you have been
in their crafty hands? In name at least you are king, and your signature
is binding upon my subjects. Have you not brought them back from exile
by one royal decree, whilst by another you have dispersed the Parliament
that was assembled to attaint them of treason?"

She stepped close up to him, and bending over him as he sat there,
crushed by realization, she lowered her voice.

"Pray God, my lord, that all their purpose with you is not yet complete,
else in their hands I do not think your life is to be valued at an
apple-paring. You go the ways poor Davie went."

He sank his handsome head to his hands, and covered his face. A while
he sat huddled there, she watching him with gleaming, crafty eyes. At
length he rallied. He looked up, tossing back the auburn hair from his
white brow, still fighting, though weakly, against persuasion. "It is
not possible," he, cried. "They could not! They could not!"

She laughed, betwixt bitterness and sadness.

"Trust to that," she bade him. "Yet look well at matters as they are
already. I am a prisoner here in these men's hands. They will not let
me go until their full purpose is accomplished--perhaps," she added
wistfully, "perhaps not even then."

"Ah, not that!" he cried out.

"Even that," she answered firmly. "But," and again she grew vehement,
"is it less so with you? Are you less a prisoner than I? D'ye think you
will be suffered to come and go at will?" She saw the increase of fear
in him, and then she struck boldly, setting all upon the gamble of a
guess. "I am kept here until I shall have been brought to such a state
that I will add my signature to your own and so pardon one and all for
what is done."

His sudden start, the sudden quickening of his glance told her how
shrewdly she had struck home. Fearlessly, then, sure of herself, she
continued. "To that end they use you. When you shall have served it you
will but cumbe