“It will be for the sake of Murray and his friends that you do this,” she said slowly. “Tell me, my lord, what great kindness is there between Murray and you that, to save him from forfeiture, you run the risk of being forfeited with him?”
“What I have done,” he said, “I have done for others, and under a bond that shall hold me scatheless.”
“Under a bond?” said she, and now she looked up at Darnley, standing ever at her side. “And was the bond yours, my lord?”
“Me?” He started back. “I know naught of it.”
But as he moved she saw something else. She leaned forward, pointing to the empty sheath at his girdle.
“Where is your dagger, my lord?” she asked him sharply.
“My dagger? Ha! How should I know?”
“But I shall know!” she threatened, as if she were not virtually a prisoner in the hands of these violent men who had invaded her palace and dragged Rizzio from her side. “I shall not rest until I know!”
The Countess came in, white to the lips, bearing in her eyes something of the horror she had beheld.
“What is it?” Mary asked her, her voice suddenly hushed and faltering.