It was, or it might have been, ludicrous to see his dismay. He stared, with dots where his eyes should have been; he puffed his cheeks and blew them empty; in his words he lost all sense of proportion.
‘Beastly villain! Why, it is a plot against me! Why, they may murder me! Why, this may have been their whole intent! Lord God, a plot!’
He pondered this dreadfully, seeing no way of escape, struggling with the injury of it and the pity of it. Consideration that she was in the same plight, that he had plotted against her, and now himself was plotted against: there was food for humour in such a thought, but no food for him. Of the two feelings he had, resentment prevailed, and brought his cunning into play. ‘By heaven and hell,’ he said, ‘but I can counter shrewdly on these knaves. Just wait a little.’ He cheered as he fumbled in his bosom. ‘You shall see, you shall see—now you shall see whether or no I can foin and parry with these night-stabbers. Oh, the treachery, the treachery! But wait a little—now, now, now!’
He produced papers in a gush—bonds, schedules, signatures, seals—all tumbled pell-mell into her lap. She read there what she had guessed beforehand: Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay, Douglas, Lethington—ah, she had forgotten this lover of Mary Fleming’s!—Boyd—yes, yes, and the stout Kirkcaldy of Grange. Not her brothers? No: but she suspected that Lethington’s name implied Moray’s. Well, Sir James would win her back Moray, she hoped. She did not trouble with any more. ‘Yes, yes, your friends, my lord. Your friends,’ she repeated, lingering on the pleasant word, ‘who have made use of you to injure me, and now have dropped you out of window. Well! And now what will you do, fellow-prisoner?’
At her knees now, his wretched head in her lap, his wretched tears staining her, he confessed the whole business, sparing nobody, not even himself; and as his miserable manhood lay spilling there it staled—like sour milk in sweet—any remnants of attraction his tall person may have had for her. She could calculate as she listened—and so she did—to what extent she might serve herself yet of this watery fool. But she could not for the life of her have expressed her contempt for him. The thing had come to pass too exactly after her calculation. If he had been a boy she might have pitied him, or if, on entering her presence, he had laid sudden hands upon her, exulting in his force and using it mannishly; had he been greedy, overbearing, insolent, snatching—and a man!—she might, once more and for ever, have given him all her heart. But a blubbering, truth-telling oaf—heaven and earth! could she have wedded this? Well, he would serve to get her out of Holyrood; and meantime she was tired and must forgive, to get rid of him.
This was not so easy as it sounds, because at the first word of human toleration she uttered he pricked up his pampered ears. As she went on to speak of the lesson he had learned, of the wisdom of trusting her for the future and of being ruled by her experience and judgment, he brushed his eyes and began to encroach. His tears had done him good, and her recollected air gave him courage; he felt shriven, more at ease. So he enriched himself of her hand again, he edged up to share her seat; very soon she felt his arm stealing about her waist. She allowed these things because she had decided that she must.
He now became very confidential, owning freely to his jealousy of the Italian—surely pardonable in a lover!—talking somewhat of his abilities with women, his high-handed ways (which he admitted that he had in excess: ‘a fault, that!‘), his ambitions towards kingship, crowns-matrimonial, and the like trappings of manhood. She listened patiently, saying little, judging and planning incessantly. This he took for favour, advanced from stronghold to stronghold, growing as he climbed. The unborn child—pledge of their love: he spoke of that. He was sly, used double meanings; he took her presently by the chin and kissed her cheek. Unresisted, he kissed her again and again. ‘Redintegratio amoris!’ he cried, really believing it at the moment. This very night he would prove to her his amendment. Journeys end in lovers’ meeting! If she would have patience she should be a happy wife yet. Would she—might he hope? Should this day be a second wedding day? Her heart was as still as freezing water, but her head prompted her to sigh and half smile.
‘You consent! You consent! Oh, happy fortune!’ he cried, and kissed her mouth and eyes, and possessed as much as he could.
‘Enough, my lord, enough!’ said she. ‘You forget, I think, that I am a wife.’
He cursed himself for having for one moment forgotten it, threw himself at her knees and kissed her held hands over and over, then jumped to his feet, all his courage restored. ‘Farewell, lady! Farewell, sweet Queen! I go to count the hours.’ He went out humming a tavern catch about Moll and Peg. She called her women in, to wash her face and hands.