her; you did not condemn
him, the judges did."

"Yes, yes; I know that he too was Murray's victim, and that is no doubt
the reason that I am calling him to mind just now. But I was able to
pardon him, Mary, and I was inflexible; I let ascend the scaffold a man
whose only crime was in loving me too well; and now I am astonished and
complain of being abandoned by everyone. Listen, darling, there is one
thing that terrifies me: it is, that when I search within myself I find
that I have not only deserved my fate, but even that God did not punish
me severely enough."

"What strange thoughts for your grace!" cried Mary; "and see where those
unlucky lines which returned to your mind have led you, the very day when
you were beginning to recover a little of your cheerfulness."

"Alas!" replied the queen, shaking her head and uttering a deep sigh,
"for six years very few days have passed that I have not repeated those
lines to myself, although it may be for the first time to-day that I
repeat them aloud. He was a Frenchman too, Mary: they have exiled from
me, taken or killed all who came to me from France. Do you remember that
vessel which was swallowed up before our eyes when we came out of Calais
harbour? I exclaimed then that it was a sad omen: you all wanted to
reassure me. Well, who was right, now, you or I?"

The queen was in one of those fits of sadness for which tears are the
sole remedy; so Mary Seyton, perceiving that not only would every
consolation be vain, but also unreasonable, far from continuing to react
against her mistress's melancholy, fully agreed with her: it followed
that the queen, who was suffocating, began to weep, and that her tears
brought her comfort; then little by little she regained self-control, and
this crisis passed as usual, leaving her firmer and more resolute than
ever, so that when she went up to her room again it was impossible to
read the slightest alteration in her countenance.

The dinner-hour was approaching, and Mary, who in the morning was looking
forward impatiently to the enjoyment of her triumph over Lady Lochleven,
now saw her advance with uneasiness: the mere idea of again facing this
woman, whose pride one was always obliged to oppose with insolence, was,
after the moral fatigues of the day, a fresh weariness. So she decided
not to appear for dinner, as on the day before: she was all the more glad
she had taken this resolution, that this time it was not Lady Lochleven