been prescribed me to cleanse me of this plague.
Kirk o' Field will serve, if it be your pleasure."

She gave a ready consent, dispatched messengers ahead to prepare the
house, and to take from Holyrood certain furnishings that should improve
the interior, and render it as fitting as possible a dwelling for a
king.

Some days later they set out, his misgivings quieted by the tenderness
which she now showed him--particularly when witnesses were at hand.

It was a tenderness that grew steadily during those twelve days in which
he lay in convalescence in the house at Kirk o' Field; she was playful
and coquettish with him as a maid with her lover, so that nothing was
talked of but the completeness of this reconciliation, and the hope that
it would lead to a peace within the realm that would be a benefit to
all. Yet many there were who marvelled at it, wondering whether the
waywardness and caprice of woman could account for so sudden a change
from hatred to affection.

Darnley was lodged on the upper floor, in a room comfortably furnished
from the palace. It was hung with six pieces of tapestry, and the floor
was partly covered by an Eastern carpet. It contained, besides the
handsome bed--which once had belonged to the Queen's mother--a couple of
high chairs in purple velvet, a little table with a green velvet cover,
and some cushions in red. By the side of the bed stood the specially
prepared bath that was part of the cure which Darnley was undergoing. It
had for its incongruous lid a door that had been lifted from its hinges.

Immediately underneath was a room that had been prepared for the Queen,
with a little bed of yellow and green damask, and a furred coverlet. The
windows looked out upon the close, and the door opened upon the passage
leading to the garden.

Here the Queen slept on several of those nights of early February, for
indeed she was more often at Kirk o' Field than at Holy-rood, and when
she was not bearing Darnley company in his chamber, and beguiling the
tedium of his illness, she was to be seen walking in the garden with
Lady Reres, and from his bed he could hear her sometimes singing as she
sauntered there.

Never since the ephemeral season of their courtship had she been on such
fond terms with him, and all his fears of hostile designs entertained
against him by her immediate followers were stilled at last. Yet not
for long. Into his fool's paradise came Lord Robert of Holyrood, with a
warning