ately carved, and beneath it
two baskets from which looked out the indignant heads of a couple of
little spaniels; upon it, at the nearer end, were three or four cages of
turtle-doves, melancholy-looking in this half-lit room; old,
sun-bleached curtains of the same material as that which hung on the
walls, shrouded the two windows on the right, letting but a half light
into the room: there was a further door, also curtained, diagonally
opposite that by which the party had entered; and in the centre of the
same wall a tall blue canopy, fringed with silver, rose to the ceiling.
Beneath it, on a dais of a single step, stood a velvet chair, with
gilded arms, and worked with the royal shield in the embroidery of the
back--with a crowned lion _sejant, guardant_, for the crest above the
crown. Half a dozen more chairs were ranged about the table; and, on a
couch, with her feet swathed in draperies, with a woman standing over
her behind, as if she had just risen up from speaking in her ear, lay
the Queen of the Scots. A tall silver and ebony crucifix, with a couple
of velvet-bound, silver-clasped little books, stood on the table within
reach of her hand, and a folded handkerchief beside them.

Mary was past her prime long ago; she was worn with sorrow and slanders
and miseries; yet she appeared to the priest's eyes, even then, like a
figure of a dream. It was partly, no doubt, the faintness of the light
that came in through the half-shrouded windows that obliterated the
lines and fallen patches that her face was beginning to bear; and she
lay, too, with her back even to such light as there was. Yet for all
that, and even if he had not known who she was, Robin could not have
taken his eyes from her face. She lay there like a fallen flower, pale
as a lily, beaten down at last by the waves and storms that had gone
over her; and she was more beautiful in her downfall and disgrace, a
thousand times, than when she had come first to Holyrood, or danced in
the Courts of France.

Now it is not in the features one by one that beauty lies but rather in
the coincidence of them all. Her face was almost waxen now, blue
shadowed beneath the two waves of pale hair; she had a small mouth, a
delicate nose, and large, searching hazel eyes. Her head-dress was of
white, with silver pins in it; a light white shawl was clasped
cross-wise over her shoulders; and she wore a loose brocaded
dressing-gown beneath it. Her hands, clasped as if in prayer, e