as need of
repose: do you not consider it is time for you to withdraw?"

"Yes, yes," said William, "to give you time to spin fresh webs, I
suppose, and to seek what fresh flies you can take in them? It is well,
go on with your work; but you have just seen that it is not easy to
deceive William Douglas. Play your game, I shall play mine". Then
turning to the servants, "Go out, all of you," said he; "and you,
mother, come."

The servants and the soldiers obeyed; then William Douglas went out
last, supporting Lady Lochleven, and the queen heard him shut behind him
and double-lock the two doors of her prison.

Scarcely was Mary alone, and certain that she was no longer seen
or heard, than all her strength deserted her, and, sinking into an
arm-chair, she burst out sobbing.

Indeed, all her courage had been needed to sustain her so far, and the
sight of her enemies alone had given her this courage; but hardly
had they gone than her situation appeared before her in all its
fatal hardship. Dethroned, a prisoner, without another fiend in this
impregnable castle than a child to whom she had scarce given attention,
and who was the sole and last thread attaching her past hopes to her
hopes for the future, what remained to Mary Stuart of her two thrones
and her double power? Her name, that was all; her, name with which,
free, she had doubtless stirred Scotland, but which little by little was
about to be effaced in the hearts of her adherents, and which during her
lifetime oblivion was to cover perhaps as with a shroud. Such an
idea was insupportable to a soul as lofty as Mary Stuart's, and to
an organisation which, like that of the flowers, has need, before
everything, of air, light, and sun.

Fortunately there remained to her the best beloved of her four Marys,
who, always devoted and consoling, hastened to succour and comfort her;
but this time it was no easy matter, and the queen let her act and speak
without answering her otherwise than with sobs and tears; when suddenly,
looking through the window to which she had drawn up her mistress's
armchair--

"The light!" cried she, "madam, the light!"

At the same time she raised the queen, and with arm outstretched from
the window, she showed her the beacon, the eternal symbol of hope,
relighted in the midst of this dark night on Kinross hill: there was no
mistake possible, not a star was shining in the sky.

"Lord God, I give Thee thanks," said the queen, falling on her kne