"Take my life since he must die," she added, striking her breast and falling prostrate before the holy images.
And then reaction set in. She felt more calm after her prayers, and began to think more clearly. The inevitableness of a catastrophe seemed to become less tangible, a persistent and hopeful "if" crept in amongst her desperate litanies. She dried her tears, rang for her waiting-woman, had her face bathed with soothing, scented waters, her temples rubbed with perfumed vinegar.
All the while now she repeated to herself—
"I will save him . . . I will save him . . . but how? . . . how?"
She had less than twenty-four hours in which to do it, and she had spent fourteen days previously in the same endeavour, without arriving at any definite plan, save the one which had so signally failed just now.
"If being found guilty I were acquitted at Your Majesty's desire, 'twould be said the Queen had saved her lover—and then married a felon!" was his sole reply to her impassioned query whether he loved her and would be saved by her command.
She would have been content to lose her honour for his sake, he would not even jeopardize his own self-esteem for hers. If he had one spark of love for her he would have been content to challenge the opinion of the world, whilst accepting his life at her hands, but he cared naught about death, and all the world for another woman who was false, a coward, a wanton, and who boldly allowed him to sacrifice his honour for her, whilst she herself had none to lose.
"Then I will save him in spite of himself," repeated Mary for the hundredth time.
Suddenly a thought struck her. She rang her hand-bell, and to the servitor who appeared at the door she commanded briefly—
"His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno;—I desire his presence here at once."