‘Your Majesty’s confidence in the earl is greater than that of your advisers,’ observed Morton, not deigning to conceal a sneer. ‘Already he boasts of his influence over the Queen, and vows that steel gauntlet shall not wrest him from Holyrood, though a white glove can lure him from Hermitage.’
The colour rose on Mary’s brow, and her bosom heaved quickly. It was evident the Queen was wavering.
‘It is but a measure of precaution,’ argued Maitland, in his plausible off-hand tones, spreading at the same time the warrant before his sovereign. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘it may be but a mere brawl about a wench! The Earl of Bothwell has ever been given to such follies overmuch.’
The Queen signed the paper hastily; then threw the pen on the table, and walked in silence from the council-chamber.
CHAPTER XI.
‘Oh! better for me that a blind-born child
Never a line I had learn’d to trace,
Than thus by a look and a laugh beguiled,
To have read my doom in fair Alice’s face.