so unbearable that she preferred to give up the recreation,
which, surrounded with such conditions, became a torture. So she shut
herself up in her apartments, finding a certain bitter and haughty
pleasure in the very excess of her misfortune.

CHAPTER VII

A week after the events we have related, as nine o'clock in the evening
had just sounded from the castle bell, and the queen and Mary Seyton were
sitting at a table where they were working at their tapestry, a stone
thrown from the courtyard passed through the window bars, broke a pane of
glass, and fell into the room. The queen's first idea was to believe it
accidental or an insult; but Mary Seyton, turning round, noticed that the
stone was wrapped up in a paper: she immediately picked it up. The paper
was a letter from George Douglas, conceived in these terms:

"You have commanded me to live, madam: I have obeyed, and your Majesty
has been able to tell, from the Kinross light, that your servants
continue to watch over you. However, not to raise suspicion, the
soldiers collected for that fatal night dispersed at dawn, and will not
gather again till a fresh attempt makes their presence necessary. But,
alas! to renew this attempt now, when your Majesty's gaolers are on their
guard, would be your ruin. Let them take every precaution, then, madam;
let them sleep in security, while we, we, in our devotion, shall go on
watching.

"Patience and courage!"

"Brave and loyal heart!" cried Mary, "more constantly devoted to
misfortune than others are to prosperity! Yes, I shall have patience and
courage, and so long as that light shines I shall still believe in
liberty."

This letter restored to the queen all her former courage: she had means
of communication with George through Little Douglas; for no doubt it was
he who had thrown that stone. She hastened, in her turn, to write a
letter to George, in which she both charged him to express her gratitude
to all the lords who had signed the protestation; and begged them, in the
name of the fidelity they had sworn to her, not to cool in their
devotion, promising them, for her part, to await the result with that
patience and courage they asked of her.

The queen was not mistaken: next day, as she was at her window, Little
Douglas came to play at the foot of the tower, and, without raising his
head, stopped just beneath her to dig a trap to catch birds. The queen
looked to see if she were observed, and assured