intently she
drew the back of her gloved fingers along the pommel. The man saw the
motion, unnoted and unsignificant to any other save Angele, meaningless
even to Melvill, the innocent and honest gentleman at his side; and he
realised that the Queen had had a warning. Noting the slight stir among
the gentlemen round him, he knew that his game was foiled, that there
was no escape. He was not prepared for what followed.

In a voice to be heard only at small distance, the Queen said calmly:

"This palfry sent me by my dear sister of Scotland shall bear me among
you, friends; and in days to come I will remember how she hath given
new life to me by her loving message. Sir Andrew Melvill, I shall have
further speech with you; and you, sir,"--speaking to the sinister figure
by his side--"come hither."

The man dismounted, and with unsteady step came forward. Elizabeth held
out her gloved hand for him to kiss. His face turned white. It was come
soon, his punishment. None knew save Angele and the Queen the doom that
was upon him, if Angele's warning was well-founded. He knelt, and bent
his head over her hand.

"Salute, sir," she said in a low voice.

He touched his lips to her fingers. She pressed them swiftly against
his mouth. An instant, then he rose and stepped backwards to his horse.
Tremblingly, blindly, he mounted.

A moment passed, then Elizabeth rode on with her ladies behind her, her
gentlemen beside her. As she passed slowly, the would-be regicide swayed
and fell from his horse, and stirred no more.

Elizabeth rode on, her hand upon the pommel of the saddle. So she rode
for a full half-hour, and came back to her palace. But she raised
not her gloved right hand above the pommel, and she dismounted with
exceeding care.

That night the man who cared for the horse died secretly as had done his
master, with the Queen's glove pressed to his nostrils by one whom Cecil
could trust. And the matter was hidden from the Court and the people;
for it was given out that Melvill's friend had died of some heart
trouble.

CHAPTER XV

It seemed an unspeakable smallness in a man of such high place in the
State, whose hand had tied and untied myriad knots of political and
court intrigue, that he should stoop to a game which any pettifogging
hanger-on might play-and reap scorn in the playing. By insidious arts,
Leicester had in his day turned the Queen's mind to his own will; had
foiled the diplomacy of the Spaniard, the