as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of
vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won
and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"

"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"

"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
exclaimed the earl, laughing.

Konrad repressed his passion.

"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
Salzberg, look well to thyself!"

"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
roof-tree."

Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.

"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."

"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
together."

So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.

_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_

But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton,
the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark
intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that
Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to
the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame
Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth
for the Border.

It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that
Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some
solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing
with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged
with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol
of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in
his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.

Long and fier