"It needs not excuse, sir," said Mary, "I understand to whom I owe this
insult. There are two things that your Queen can never take from
me--royal blood and the Catholic faith. One day some of you will be
sorry for what you have now put upon me! I would be alone, sir," and
she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing
her still fully Queen in her own apartments. Paulett obeyed, and when
he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she
had preserved all this time. She threw herself into Jean Kennedy's
arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at
heart to have recovered "her bairn," fondled and soothed her with soft
Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again.
"Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little
while--only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh!
I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all."

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at
this unwonted depression, but she only said, "Get me to bed, nurse, I
am sair forfaughten."

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hardships and
the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several
days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded
by the recovered care and companionship of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where
her treasure was kept. Melville had refused to yield them, and all the
Queen said was, "Robbery is to be added to the rest," a sentence which
greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he
found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining
enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.

CHAPTER XXXI.

EVIDENCE.

In the meantime the two Richard Talbots, father and son, had safely
arrived in London, and had been made welcome at the house of their
noble kinsman.

Nau and Curll, they heard, were in Walsingham's house, subjected to
close examination; Babington and all his comrades were in the Tower.
The Council was continually sitting to deliberate over the fate of the
latter unhappy men, of whose guilt there was no doubt; and neither Lord
Talbot nor Will Cavendish thought there was any possibility of Master
Richard gaining permission to plead how the unfortunate Babington had
been worked on and deceived. After the