es
and raising her arms to heaven with a gesture of gratitude: "Douglas has
escaped, and my friends still keep watch."

Then, after a fervent prayer, which restored to her a little strength,
the queen re-entered her room, and, tired out by her varied successive
emotions, she slept an uneasy, agitated sleep, over which the
indefatigable Mary Seyton kept watch till daybreak.

As William Douglas had said, from this time forward the queen was a
prisoner indeed, and permission to go down into the garden was no longer
granted but under the surveillance of two soldiers; but this annoyance
seemed to her so unbearable that she preferred to give up the
recreation, which, surrounded with such conditions, became a torture.
So she shut herself up in her apartments, finding a certain bitter and
haughty pleasure in the very excess of her misfortune.

CHAPTER VII

A week after the events we have related, as nine o'clock in the evening
had just sounded from the castle bell, and the queen and Mary Seyton
were sitting at a table where they were working at their tapestry, a
stone thrown from the courtyard passed through the window bars, broke
a pane of glass, and fell into the room. The queen's first idea was
to believe it accidental or an insult; but Mary Seyton, turning round,
noticed that the stone was wrapped up in a paper: she immediately picked
it up. The paper was a letter from George Douglas, conceived in these
terms:

"You have commanded me to live, madam: I have obeyed, and your Majesty
has been able to tell, from the Kinross light, that your servants
continue to watch over you. However, not to raise suspicion, the
soldiers collected for that fatal night dispersed at dawn, and will not
gather again till a fresh attempt makes their presence necessary. But,
alas! to renew this attempt now, when your Majesty's gaolers are on
their guard, would be your ruin. Let them take every precaution, then,
madam; let them sleep in security, while we, we, in our devotion, shall
go on watching.

"Patience and courage!"

"Brave and loyal heart!" cried Mary, "more constantly devoted to
misfortune than others are to prosperity! Yes, I shall have patience
and courage, and so long as that light shines I shall still believe in
liberty."

This letter restored to the queen all her former courage: she had means
of communication with George through Little Douglas; for no doubt it
was he who had thrown that stone. She hastened, in her turn,