and tortured men's confessions
worth?" said Mary.

"Were your Majesty a private person they would never be accepted as
evidence," said Melville; "but--"

"But because I am a Queen and a Catholic there is no justice for me,"
said Mary. "Well, what is the defence you would have me confine myself
to, my sole privy counsellors?"

Here Cis, to show she was awake, pressed her mother's hand and looked
up in her face, but Mary, though returning the glance and the pressure,
did not send her away, while Melville recommended strongly that the
Queen should continue to insist on the imperfection of the evidence
adduced against her, which he said might so touch some of the lawyers,
or the nobles, that Burghley and Walsingham might be afraid to proceed.
If this failed her, she must allow her knowledge of the plot for her
own escape and the Spanish invasion, but strenuously deny the part
which concerned Elizabeth's life.

"That it is which they above all desire to fix on me," said the Queen.

Cicely's brain was in confusion. Surely she had heard those letters
read in the hall. Were they false or genuine? The Queen had utterly
denied them there. Now she seemed to think the only point was to prove
that these were not the originals. Dr. Bourgoin seemed to feel the
same difficulty.

"Madame will pardon me," he said; "I have not been of her secret
councils, but can she not, if rightly dealt with, prove those two
letters that were read to have been forged by her enemies?"

"What I could do is this, my good Bourgoin," said Mary; "were I only
confronted with Nau and Curll, I could prove that the letter I received
from Babington bore nothing about the destroying the usurping
competitor. The poor faithful lad was a fool, but not so great a fool
as to tell me such things. And, on the other hand, hath either of you,
my friends, ever seen in me such symptoms of midsummer madness as that
I should be asking the names of the six who were to do the deed? What
cared I for their names? I--who only wished to know as little of the
matter as possible!"

"Can your Majesty prove that you knew nothing?" asked Melville.

Mary paused. "They cannot prove by fair means that I knew anything,"
said she, "for I did not. Of course I was aware that Elizabeth must be
taken out of the way, or the heretics would be rallying round her; but
there is no lack of folk who delight in work of that sort, and why
should I meddle with the knowledge? With th