Davie was slain."

In themselves, those words were not strictly accurate. It wanted yet a
month to the anniversary of Rizzio's death. And why, at parting, should
she have reminded him of that which she had agreed should be forgotten?
Instantly came the answer that she sought to warn him that retribution
was impending. He thought again of the rumours that he had heard of a
bond signed at Craigmillar; he recalled Lord Robert's warning to him,
afterwards denied.

He recalled her words to himself at the time of Rizzio's death:
"Consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest
until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently." And further,
he remembered her cry at once agonized and fiercely vengeful: "Jamais,
jamais je n'oublierai."

His terrors mounted swiftly, to be quieted again at last when he
looked at the ring she had put upon his finger in pledge of her renewed
affection. The past was dead and buried, surely. Though danger might
threaten, she would guard him against it, setting her love about him
like a panoply of steel. When she came to-morrow, he would question her
closely, and she should be more frank and open with him, and tell him
all. Meanwhile, he would take his precautions for to-night.

He sent his page to make fast all doors. The youth went and did as he
was bidden, with the exception of the door that led to the garden. It
had no bolts, and the key was missing; yet, seeing his master's nervous,
excited state, he forbore from any mention of that circumstance when
presently he returned to him.

Darnley requested a book of Psalms, that he might read himself to sleep.
The page dozed in a chair, and so the hours passed; and at last the King
himself fell into a light slumber. Out of this he started suddenly at
a little before two o'clock, and sat upright in bed, alarmed without
knowing why, listening with straining ears and throbbing pulses.

He caught a repetition of the sound that had aroused him, a sound akin
to that which had drawn his attention earlier, when Mary had been with
him. It came up faintly from the room immediately beneath: her room.
Some one was moving there, he thought. Then, as he continued to listen,
all became quiet again, save his fears, which would not be quieted.
He extinguished the light, slipped from the bed, and, crossing to the
window, peered out into the close that was faintly illumined by a
moon in its first quarter. A shadow moved, he thought. He wat