“Yes,” she said slowly, musingly, and again, “yes. That were a way. That is the way.” And then suddenly she looked up, and they saw doubt and dread in her eyes. “But in that case—what of my son?”
“Aye!” said Lethington grimly. He shrugged his narrow shoulders, parted his hands, and brought them together again. “That's the obstacle, as we perceived. It would imperil his succession.”
“It would make a bastard of him, you mean?” she cried, demanding the full expansion of their thoughts.
“Indeed it would do no less,” the secretary assented.
“So that,” said Bothwell, softly, “we come back to Alexander's method. What the fingers may not unravel, the knife can sever.”
She shivered, and drew her furred cloak the more closely about her.
Lethington leaned forward. He spoke in kindly, soothing accents.
“Let us guide this matter among us, madame,” he murmured, “and we'll find means to rid Your Grace of this young fool, without hurt to your honour or prejudice to your son. And the Earl of Murray will look the other way, provided you pardon Morton and his friends for the killing they did in Darnley's service.”
She looked from one to the other of them, scanning each face in turn. Then her eyes returned to a contemplation of the flaming logs, and she spoke very softly.
“Do nothing by which a spot might be laid on my honour or conscience,” she said, with an odd deliberateness that seemed to insist upon the strictly literal meaning of her words. “Rather I pray you let the matter rest until God remedy it.”