der, what we need is darkness,
not light."

"Listen," said the queen; "it is by this we are going to see if God is
indeed for us; if the weather remains as it is, yes, you are right, He
abandons us; but if it clouds over, oh! then, darling, this will be a
certain proof of His protection, will it not?"

Mary Seyton smiled, nodding that she adopted her mistress's
superstition; then the queen, incapable of remaining idle in her great
preoccupation of mind, collected the few jewels that she had preserved,
enclosed them in a casket, got ready for the evening a black dress, in
order to be still better hidden in the darkness: and, these preparations
made, she sat down again at the window, ceaselessly carrying her eyes
from the lake to the little house in Kinross, shut up and dumb as usual.

The dinner-hour arrived: the queen was so happy that she received
William Douglas with more goodwill than was her wont, and it was with
difficulty she remained seated during the time the meal lasted; but she
restrained herself, and William Douglas withdrew, without seeming to
have noticed her agitation.

Scarcely had he gone than Mary ran to the window; she had need of air,
and her gaze devoured in advance those wide horizons which she was about
to cross anew; it seemed to her that once at liberty she would
never shut herself up in a palace again, but would wander about the
countryside continually: then, amid all these tremors of delight, from
time to time she felt unexpectedly heavy at heart. She then turned round
to Mary Seyton, trying to fortify her strength with hers, and the young
girl kept up her hopes, but rather from duty than from conviction.

But slow as they seemed to the queen, the hours yet passed: towards the
afternoon some clouds floated across the blue sky; the queen remarked
upon them joyfully to her companion; Mary Seyton congratulated her upon
them, not on account of the imaginary omen that the queen sought in
them, but because of the real importance that the weather should be
cloudy, that darkness might aid them in their flight. While the two
prisoners were watching the billowy, moving vapours, the hour of dinner
arrived; but it was half an hour of constraint and dissimulation, the
more painful that, no doubt in return for the sort of goodwill shown him
by the queen in the morning, William Douglas thought himself obliged,
in his turn, to accompany his duties with fitting compliments, which
compelled the queen to tak