On the evening appointed by Nightgall for the assassination of Renard, the proposed victim and the queen were alone within this chamber. The former had renewed all his arguments, and with greater force than ever, and seeing he had produced the desired impression, he placed before her the warrant for the execution of Jane and her husband.
“Your majesty will never wear your crown easily till you sign that paper,” he said.
“I shall never wear it easily afterwards,” sighed Mary. “Do you not remember Jane’s words? She told me, I should be fortunate in my union, and my race should continue upon the throne, if I spared her husband. They seem to me prophetic. If I sign this warrant, I may destroy my own happiness.”
“Your highness will be not turned from your purpose by such idle fears,” rejoined Renard, in as sarcastic a tone as he dared assume. “Not only your throne may be endangered, if you suffer them to live, but the Catholic religion.”
“True,” replied Mary, “I will no longer hesitate.”
And she attached her signature to the warrant.
Renard watched her with a look of such fiendish exultation, that an unseen person who gazed at the moment into the room, seeing a tall dark figure, dilated by the gloom, for it was deepening twilight, and a countenance from which everything human was banished, thought he beheld a demon, and, fascinated by terror, could not withdraw his eyes. At the same moment, too, the queen’s favourite dog, which was couched at her feet, and for a short time previously had been uttering a low growl, now broke into a fierce bark, and sprang towards the passage-window. Mary turned to ascertain the cause of the animal’s disquietude, and perceived that it had stiffened in every joint, while its barking changed to a dismal howl. Not without misgiving, she glanced towards the window—and there, at the very place whence she had often heard that the murderers had gazed upon the slumbering innocents before the bloody deed was done—there, between those bars, she beheld a hideous black mask, through the holes of which glared a pair of flashing orbs.
