"Retreat for thirty miles through a country full of strong military positions!" exclaimed the Earl of Mar with growing indignation.
"And leaving alike the queen and queen-mother behind. Truly well and wisely planned, most sapient regent!" said Mary of Lorraine bitterly.
"On seeing the field was lost," said Florence, "his last orders to me, madam, were to get you forth the city and conduct you and your royal daughter to a place of greater safety."
"I know not in whom to believe, M. Fawside," said the queen mournfully; "or to whom to turn."
"Ah, turn to me, madam," said the young man, with a glance of honest confidence and enthusiasm, as some of the ever-watchful courtiers withdrew a little space to confer among themselves; "my counsel may be feeble, it may even be unwise; but my sword is ever ready, my heart steadfast and true."
"But a queen—especially a young queen (I am only thirty-two)," she added with a charming French smile, "is always surrounded by so many flatterers!"
Poor Florence now coloured absolutely crimson, for with all his love for Madeline he felt how seductive and dangerous was this intimacy and familiarity with Mary of Lorraine. The latter saw the triumph of her beauty, felt its power and smiled again; for amid all her domestic and political troubles, she was too much of a Frenchwoman and a Guise not to find a pleasure and consolation in this.
"Ah, monsieur," she added, "do you love your little queen?"
"I love her, madam, as becomes a Scottish gentleman and faithful subject,—as the daughter of that good King James for whom my father drew his sword at Falamuir, at Ancrumford, and Solway Moss!"
"She is yet a child—alas!——"