He waved a hand as if to dismiss the matter. It may have seemed to him frivolous to dwell upon such a trifle amid so much.
“It's no' frae lack o' respect, Your Grace,” he growled, “but frae lack o' strength. I am ill, and I should ha' been abed but for what was here to do.”
“Ah!” She looked at him with cold repugnance. “What have you done with Davie?”
He shrugged, yet his eyes quailed before her own.
“He'll be out yonder,” he answered, grimly evasive; and he took the wine one of his followers proffered him.
And the Countess, setting the candle-branch upon the buffet, went out, none attempting to hinder her.
Then, with narrowed eyes, the Queen watched Ruthven while he drank.
“It will be for the sake of Murray and his friends that you do this,” she said slowly. “Tell me, my lord, what great kindness is there between Murray and you that, to save him from forfeiture, you run the risk of being forfeited with him?”
“What I have done,” he said, “I have done for others, and under a bond that shall hold me scatheless.”
“Under a bond?” said she, and now she looked up at Darnley, standing ever at her side. “And was the bond yours, my lord?”
“Me?” He started back. “I know naught of it.”
But as he moved she saw something else. She leaned forward, pointing to the empty sheath at his girdle.
“Where is your dagger, my lord?” she asked him sharply.
“But I shall know!” she threatened, as if she were not virtually a prisoner in the hands of these violent men who had invaded her palace and dragged Rizzio from her side. “I shall not rest until I know!”
The Countess came in, white to the lips, bearing in her eyes something of the horror she had beheld.
“What is it?” Mary asked her, her voice suddenly hushed and faltering.
“Madame--he is dead! Murdered!” she announced.
The Queen looked at her, her face of marble. Then her voice came hushed and tense:
There was a long pause. A low moan escaped the Queen, and her lovely eyes were filled with tears; slowly these coursed down her cheeks. Something compelling in her grief hushed every voice, and the craven husband at her side shivered as her glance fell upon him once more.
“And is it so?” she said at length, considering him. She dried her eyes. “Then farewell tears; I must study revenge.” She rose as if with labour, and standing, clung a moment to the table's edge. A moment she looked at Ruthven, who sat glooming there, dagger in one hand and empty wine-cup in the other; then her glance passed on, and came to rest balefully on Darnley's face. “You have had your will, my lord,” she said, “but consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently.”