not long ere Bothwell,
having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
pledged to Konrad.

But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere
to be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.

Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly,
told him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
reversed.

Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever
required that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the
Earl of Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a
mock marriage.

His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who
dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell
to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.

A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier,
a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried
out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried
him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.
The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their
starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had
realised that he had lost her.

_II.--Bothwell Castle_

"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect
of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."

"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.

"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
succeeded her whom I met in France long a