She saw, from these advices, that the King's situation was little better than desperate. She saw another thing—there was not, at that moment, sufficient force available in the capital to control the multitude. They were, in fact, at the mercy of the populace.
When the haze of spring twilight began to fall over the stocks and lilies, violets and pinks in the gardens sloping to the river, still flashing in the sinking sun, and the first breaths of evening were wafted through the open windows of the Palace, delicious with the perfume of these beds of sweets, the Queen went herself and alone to the cabinet where the King kept his anguished vigil.
For a while he would not open, even to the sound of her voice, but after she had waited there a little, like a supplicant, she heard his step, the key was turned, and he admitted her. She entered swiftly and flung herself at his feet, as she had done at their first meeting nearly twenty years ago, when he had lifted her young loveliness to his heart, there to for ever remain.
Now she was a worn woman, her beauty prematurely obscured by distresses, and he was far different from the radiant cavalier who had welcomed her to England, but the fire of love lit then in the heart of each had not abated; even now, in the midst of his misery of mind, he raised her up as tenderly, as reverently, as when she had first come to him.
"Mary," he said brokenly, "Mary."
He kissed her cold cheek as he drew her to his shoulder, and she felt his tears.
But her mood was not one of weeping; her frail figure, her delicate features, were alert and quivering with energy; her large vivid eyes glanced eagerly round the room. On the King's private black and gold Chinese bureau lay the warrant for my Lord Strafford's execution. So hasty and resolved was the Parliament, also, perhaps, so confident of their power to force the King's assent, that the warrant had been sent before the royal consent had been given to the Bill.
The Queen drew herself away from Charles and rested her glance on him. She wore a white gown enriched with silver damask flowers, her face, too, was colourless save for a feverish flush under her eyes, and the long-admired black locks hung neglected and disarranged over her deep lace collar. She was a sorrowful and reproachful figure as she stood regarding him so intently.
The King's white sick face, too, wore a look of utter suffering, in his narrowed eyes was a bitterness beyond sorrow.
"Sire," said the Queen in a formal tone, "you shut yourself up here when it would more befit you to come forth and face what must be faced." She set her teeth, "The people are at the very gates."