n, and aroused
in them a shame of their own harshness. "Leave this security with me. I
will subscribe it in the morning--indeed, as soon as I am sufficiently
recovered."

They rose from their knees at her bidding, and Morton in the name of all
professed himself full satisfied, and deplored the affliction they had
caused her, for which in the future they should make her their amends.

"I thank you," she answered simply. "You have leave to go."

They departed well satisfied; and, counting the matter at an end, they
quitted the palace and rode to their various lodgings in Edinburgh town,
Murray going with Morton.

Anon to Maitland of Lethington, who had remained behind, came one of
the Queen's women to summon him to her presence. He found her disposing
herself for bed, and was received by her with tearful upbraidings.

"Sir," she said, "one of the conditions upon which I consented to the
will of their lordships was that an immediate term should be set to the
insulting state of imprisonment in which I am kept here. Yet men-at-arms
still guard the very door of my chamber, and my very attendants are
hindered in their comings and goings. Do you call this keeping faith
with me? Have I not granted all the requests of the lords?"

Lethington, perceiving the justice of what she urged, withdrew shamed
and confused at once to remedy the matter by removing the guards from
the passage and the stairs and elsewhere, leaving none but those who
paced outside the palace.

It was a rashness he was bitterly to repent him on the morrow, when
it was discovered that in the night Mary had not only escaped, but had
taken Darnley with her. Accompanied by him and a few attendants, she had
executed the plan in which earlier that day she had secured her scared
husband's cooperation. At midnight they had made their way along the now
unguarded corridors, and descended to the vaults of the palace, whence a
secret passage communicated with the chapel. Through this and across the
graveyard where lay the newly buried body of the Siegneur Davie--almost
across the very grave itself which stood near the chapel door they had
won to the horses waiting by Darnley's orders in the open. And they had
ridden so hard that by five o'clock of that Tuesday morning they were in
Dunbar.

In vain did the alarmed lords send a message after her to demand her
signature of the security upon which she had duped them into counting
prematurely.

Within a week they were