She could not but pity him; she who was so good and tender-hearted and pitiful to all: his sorrow was so obvious, his misery so complete. She gave him her white hand and bade him rise to his feet; then she chid him gently, kindly, with a grave sorrow on her young face, like a mother who takes to task a dear but froward child.
‘You would not grieve me, Chastelâr,’ said she, ‘I know. Not one of my Scottish subjects is more loyal and true than my French minstrel. Give me your book; I will accept it as a pledge of your service and fidelity to your sovereign. To your sovereign,’ she added, with a significant look, before which his eyes were lowered, and his whole countenance fell. ‘I am not only Mary Stuart,’ she added—and perhaps it was but his fancy made him think there was a dash of sadness in her tone—‘I am the Queen of Scotland as well. This country, too, is not like France; there are grave eyes watching here to which the lightest matters are a scandal and an offence. Enough of this. I have resolved to trust you, Chastelâr: I will employ you in my service. You will be far from Holyrood, but you will be fulfilling my wishes and furthering my interests. To-morrow you will receive your instructions. Chastelâr, I can count on obedience. Farewell!’
There was a tone of sorrow in her voice, and she looked on him very sadly as she passed on into her apartments out of his sight.
Though he heard her words, they were unable to rouse him; though he saw the glance he appeared to heed it not; his frame seemed crushed and powerless; his head was sunk on his breast; when he lifted it, she was gone. Then he drew himself up and looked around him like a man who wakes from some ghastly dream. His face was very white when he walked away, and there was a smile on it not pleasant to behold. You may see such on the face of one who is sentenced to death.
Why should he be pitied? If a man must needs sit down to play his all, whose fault is it that he gets up a beggar? If he grasps at the phial, though it be marked ‘Poison,’ and drains it to the dregs, what is he to expect? Experience will not warn the gambler, he must go to the workhouse at last; nor reason stay the hand of the suicide, he must die like a dog—in a ditch.
CHAPTER XVIII.
‘To seek hot water beneath cauld ice,
I trow it is a great folie;
I have asked grace at a graceless face,