“What he may have done does not weigh upon my conscience,” was her answer.
“He might,” put in Argyll, “be convicted of treason for having consented to Your Grace's retention in ward at Holyrood after Rizzio's murder.”
She considered an instant, then shook her head.
“It is too late. It should have been done long since. Now men will say that it is but a pretext to be rid of him.” She looked up at Bothwell, who remained standing immediately before her, between her and the fire. “You said that my Lord of Murray had discussed this matter. Was it in such terms as these?”
Bothwell laughed silently at the thought of the sly Murray rendering himself a party to anything so direct and desperate. It was Lethington who answered her.
“My Lord Murray was for a divorce. That would set Your Grace free, and it might be obtained, he said, by tearing up the Pope's bull of dispensation that permitted the marriage. Yet, madame, although Lord Murray would himself go no further, I have no cause to doubt that were other means concerted, he would be content to look through his fingers.”
Her mind, however, did not seem to follow his speech beyond the matter of the divorce. A faint flush of eagerness stirred in her pale cheeks.
“Ah, yes!” she cried. “I, too, have thought of that—of this divorce. And God knows I do not want for grounds. And it could be obtained, you say, by tearing up this papal bull?”
“The marriage could be proclaimed void thereafter,” Argyll explained.
She looked past Bothwell into the fire, and took her chin in her hand.