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.
“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.”
Lethington looked at the other two, the other two looked at him. He rubbed his hands softly.
“Trust to us, madame,” he answered. “We will so guide the matter that Your Grace shall see nothing but what is good and approved by Parliament.”
She committed herself to no reply, and so they were content to take their answer from her silence. They went in quest of Huntly and Sir James Balfour, and the five of them entered into a bond for the destruction of him whom they named “the young fool and proud tiranne,” to be engaged in when Mary should have pardoned Morton and his fellow-conspirators.
It was not until Christmas Eve that she signed this pardon of some seventy fugitives, proscribed for their participation in the Rizzio murder, towards whom she had hitherto shown herself so implacable.
The world saw in this no more than a deed of clemency and charity befitting the solemn festival of good-will. But the five who had entered into that bond at Craigmillar Castle beheld in it more accurately the fulfilment of her part of the suggested bargain, the price she paid in advance to be rid of Darnley, the sign of her full agreement that the knot which might not be unravelled should be cut.
On that same day Her Grace went with Bothwell to Lord Drummond's, where they abode for the best part of a week, and thence they went on together to Tullibardine, the rash and open intimacy between them giving nourishment to scandal.
At the same time Darnley quitted Stirling, where he had lately been living in miserable conditions, ignored by the nobles, and even stinted in his necessary expenses, deprived of his ordinary servants, and his silver replaced by pewter. The miserable youth reached Glasgow deadly sick. He had been taken ill on the way, and the inevitable rumour was spread that he had been poisoned. Later, when it became known that his once lovely countenance was now blotched and disfigured, it was realized that his illness was no more than the inevitable result of the debauched life he led.
Conceiving himself on the point of death, Darnley wrote piteously to the Queen; but she ignored his letters until she learnt that his condition was improving, when at last (on January 29th) she went to visit him at Glasgow. It may well be that she nourished some hope that nature would resolve the matter for her, and remove the need for such desperate measures as had been concerted. But seeing him likely to recover, two things became necessary, to bring him to the place that was suitable for the fulfilment of her designs, and to simulate reconciliation with him, and even renewed and tender affection, so that none might hereafter charge her with complicity in what should follow.
I hope that in this I do her memory no injustice. It is thus that I read the sequel, nor can I read it in any other way.
She found him abed, with a piece of taffeta over his face to hide its disfigurement, and she was so moved—as it seemed—by his condition, that she fell on her knees beside him, and wept in the presence of her attendants and his own; confessing penitence if anything she had done in the past could have contributed to their estrangement. Thus reconciliation followed, and she used him tenderly, grew solicitous concerning him, and vowed that as soon as he could be moved, he must be taken to surroundings more salubrious and more befitting the dignity of his station.
Gladly then he agreed to return with her to Holyrood.
“Not to Holyrood,” she said. “At least, not until your health is mended, lest you should carry thither infection dangerous to your little son.”
“Whither then?” he asked her, and when she mentioned Craigmillar, he started up in bed, so that the taffeta slipped from his face, and it was with difficulty that she dissembled the loathing with which the sight of its pustules inspired her.
“Craigmillar!” he cried. “Then what I was told is true.”
“What were you told?” quoth she, staring at him, brows knit, her face blank.
A rumour had filtered through to him of the Craigmillar bond. He had been told that a letter drawn up there had been presented to her for her signature, which she had refused. Thus much he told her, adding that he could not believe that she would do him any hurt; and yet why did she desire to bear him to Craigmillar?
“You have been told lies,” she answered him. “I saw no such letter; I subscribed none, nor was ever asked to subscribe any,” which indeed was literally true. “To this I swear. As for your going to Craigmillar, you shall go whithersoever you please, yourself.”
He sank back on his pillows, and his trembling subsided.
“I believe thee, Mary. I believe thou'ld never do me any harm,” he repeated, “and if any other would,” he added on a bombastic note, “they shall buy it dear, unless they take me sleeping. But I'll never to Craigmillar.”
“I have said you shall go where you please,” she assured him again.
He considered.
“There is the house at Kirk o' Field. It has a fine garden, and is in a position that is deemed the healthiest about Edinburgh. I need good air; good air and baths have been prescribed me to cleanse me of this plague. Kirk o' Field will serve, if it be your pleasure.”
She gave a ready consent, dispatched messengers ahead to prepare the house, and to take from Holyrood certain furnishings that should improve the interior, and render it as fitting as possible a dwelling for a king.
Some days later they set out, his misgivings quieted by the tenderness which she now showed him—particularly when witnesses were at hand.
It was a tenderness that grew steadily during those twelve days in which he lay in convalescence in the house at Kirk o' Field; she was playful and coquettish with him as a maid with her lover, so that nothing was talked of but the completeness of this reconciliation, and the hope that it would lead to a peace within the realm that would be a benefit to all. Yet many there were who marvelled at it, wondering whether the waywardness and caprice of woman