, and kissed it
with such respect that no one could have seen in this action anything but
the homage of devotion and fidelity.

Then, having bowed to the queen, he went out, that a longer stay with her
should not give rise to any suspicions.

At the dinner-hour Douglas brought, as he had said, a parcel of cord. It
was not enough, but when evening came Mary Seyton was to unroll it and
let fall the end from the window, and George would fasten the remainder
to it: the thing was done as arranged, and without any mishap, an hour
after the hunters had returned.

The following day George left the castle.

The queen and Mary Seyton lost no time in setting about the rope ladder,
and it was finished on the third day. The same evening, the queen in her
impatience, and rather to assure herself of her partisans' vigilance than
in the hope that the time of her deliverance was so near, brought her
lamp to the window: immediately, and as George Douglas had told her, the
light in the little house at Kinross disappeared: the queen then laid her
hand on her heart and counted up to twenty-two; then the light
reappeared; they were ready for everything, but nothing was yet settled.
For a week the queen thus questioned the light and her heart-beats
without their number changing; at last, on the eighth day, she counted
only as far as ten; at the eleventh the light reappeared.

The queen believed herself mistaken: she did not dare to hope what this
announced. She withdrew the lamp; then, at the end of a quarter of an
hour, showed it again: her unknown correspondent understood. with his
usual intelligence that a fresh trial was required of him, and the light
in the little house disappeared in its turn. Mary again questioned the
pulsations of her heart, and, fast as it leaped, before the twelfth beat
the propitious star was shining on the horizon: there was no longer any
doubt; everything was settled.

Mary could not sleep all night: this persistency of her partisans
inspired her with gratitude to the point of tears. The day came, and the
queen several times questioned her companion to assure herself that it
was not all a dream; at every sound it seemed to her that the scheme on
which her liberty hung was discovered, and when, at breakfast and at
dinner time, William Douglas entered as usual, she hardly dared look at
him, for fear of reading on his face the announcement that all was lost.

In the evening the queen again questioned the