He smiled a sweet sad smile.
‘I have done with chances now,’ said he; ‘I set my all on one cast, and I do not complain that the luck has gone against me. It was kind of you to come and visit me, Mary’—he dwelt fondly on the name and repeated it more than once—‘I was thinking of you even when you appeared. I was wishing I could see you once more. What of the Queen?’ he added, with an eager glance. ‘Is she here at St Andrews?’
‘She sent me to you this very night,’ replied the other. ‘What I do is by her command, and according to her directions. You shall not die, Chastelâr; she bade me save you, and we have the means; only be obedient, and, above all, keep silent.’
His whole face lighted up as he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Life was sweet to the poet, with his warm impulsive nature and his glowing hopes; all the more so when he learned that he would owe that life to the favour of the Queen. He listened eagerly while the maid-of-honour detailed to him the proposed manner of his escape, which, indeed, seemed feasible enough. She hoped, through the potency of the brandy which she had left behind her in the guard-room, and with the assistance of her half-witted confederate, to bring the soldiers to a state of hilarity at which the eye is not very keen, nor the suspicions very easily aroused; while in her whispered conversation with Ogilvy she had already, with the unscrupulous shrewdness of a woman, made use of his attachment to Mary Beton to win him half over to her enterprise. She calculated, at least, on his ignoring her proceedings; she then proposed to dress Chastelâr in her own hood and mantle, which, as their statures were not very dissimilar, would form a thorough disguise, and she had sedulously tutored James Geddes, who took an unaccountable delight in the whole proceeding, to conduct the captive to the gate with the same deference and care as if it were herself. It was difficult to make the faithful fool understand this part of the plan, but she had instilled it into him at last. He was to encourage the inebriety of the men-at-arms to the utmost of his power, and directly Ogilvy’s back was turned to go his rounds, which something she had told him would induce the captain to do at an earlier hour than usual, James Geddes was to return to the dungeon and summon the visitor to depart. Chastelâr, in Mary Hamilton’s clothes, would then accompany him to the gate, and she herself would remain a prisoner in his place.
‘And when they find you here,’ exclaimed the poet, all his generous impulses protesting against such an arrangement, ‘think of Ogilvy’s rage! think of the rude drunken soldiers! It cannot, it shall not be! Your life would have to pay the penalty.’
‘And I would give my life freely for yours,’ she replied, a bright smile breaking over her face, causing her to look for the first time to-night like the Mary Hamilton he remembered in the Queen’s chamber, when all was so different and so happy.
‘For mine!’ he repeated, with a sadly troubled face. ‘Oh, too late! too late!’
‘Do not say so,’ she continued, speaking very rapidly and eagerly, with her slender fingers grasping the prisoner’s arm like a vice. ‘I would not have told you this but that we shall never meet again. The very terms on which the Queen yielded to my entreaties were these: That you leave Scotland within twenty-four hours, and pledge your honour never to enter Mary Stuart’s dominions more. Oh, if you knew how I knelt and prayed and pleaded ere I could wring from her the token that gave me access here; if you could have seen her angry frown while I implored, or heard the cold resolute voice in which she said at last, “I consent, but only on these terms, that I never behold him more,” you would have pitied me, Chastelâr; you should pity me now, for though I have saved your life, oh, I am very, very miserable.’
Again she burst into a fit of weeping, the hot tears fell upon his hand, but he heeded them not; he scarce seemed conscious of the devoted broken-hearted woman trembling there before him; the Queen’s words struck like a poniard to his heart, and he was mad! love-mad once more!
He broke rudely from his companion; he flung her hand from his arm, as if the touch were a viper’s; his eye glared, and he ground his teeth together in the agony of a wounded spirit, and a pride humbled to the dust.