that flung him into a sweat of panic.

The conspirators had hired a few trusted assistants to help them carry
out their plans, and a rumour had got abroad--in the unaccountable way
of rumours--that there was danger to the King. It was of this rumour
that Lord Robert brought him word, telling him bluntly that unless he
escaped quickly from this place, he would leave his life there. Yet when
Darnley had repeated this to the Queen, and the Queen indignantly had
sent for Lord Robert and demanded to know his meaning, his lordship
denied that he had uttered any such warning, protested that his words
must have been misunderstood--that they referred solely to the King's
condition, which demanded, he thought, different treatment and healthier
air.

Knowing not what to believe, Darnley's uneasiness abode with him. Yet,
trusting Mary, and feeling secure so long as she was by his side, he
became more and more insistent upon her presence, more and more fretful
in her absence. It was to quiet him that she consented to sleep as often
as might be at Kirk o' Field. She slept there on the Wednesday of that
week, and again on Friday, and she was to have done so yet again on that
fateful Sunday, February 9th, but that her servant Sebastien--one
who had accompanied her from France, and for whom she had a deep
affection--was that day married, and Her Majesty had promised to be
present at the masque that night at Holyrood, in honour of his nuptials.

Nevertheless, she did not utterly neglect her husband on that account.
She rode to Kirk o' Field early in the evening, accompanied by Bothwell,
Huntly, Argyll, and some others; and leaving the lords at cards below
to while away the time, she repaired to Darnley, and sat beside his bed,
soothing a spirit oddly perturbed, as if with some premonition of what
was brewing.

"Ye'll not leave me the night," he begged her once.

"Alas," she said, "I must! Sebastien is being wed, and I have promised
to be present."

He sighed and shifted uneasily.

"Soon I shall be well, and then these foolish humours will cease to
haunt me. But just now I cannot bear you from my sight. When you are
with me I am at peace. I know that all is well. But when you go I am
filled with fears, lying helpless here."

"What should you fear?" she asked him.

"The hate that I know is alive against me."

"You are casting shadows to affright yourself," said she.

"What's that?" he cried, half raising himself in sudden alar