Her brow and rounded cheeks were pale as death; but, though suffused with tears, her eyes were full of fire, and there was more perhaps of anger than of grief in the quivering of her short upper lip. Aware of her dishabille, and that the Countess of Argyle, and other ladies of the court, who were all in their night-dresses, had fled at the Earl’s approach, as so many doves would have done from a vulture, leaving her almost alone with him—the queen cast down her long dark lashes for a moment, and then bent her keen gaze full upon Bothwell, whose open helmet revealed the pallor of his usually careless, jovial, and nutbrown face.
"Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies, Ne’er with such force the swiftest arrow flew; ’Tis as the snake late coil’d, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and his strength."
Powerful and daring as he was, the Earl quailed beneath her eye; but immediately recovering his admirable air of self-possession, he began in the most courteous manner to deplore the dreadful event, "which," says the Knight of Halhill, "he termed the strangest catastrophe that ever was heard of; for thunder had come out of the sky, and burnt the house of the king, whose body was found lying dead at a little distance from the ruins under a tree."
"Thunder, sayest thou?" reiterated the Queen. "Sweet mother Mary—assist me! Some of the archers of our guard, Lord Earl, men whose bows were drawn at Pinkiecleugh and Ancrumford, aver that the ruins bear marks of Friar Bacon’s art rather than electricity. Thunder!"——
"Lord Earl," replied Mary, in a low emphatic tone; "this—this is—_thy_ doing—thine!"
"Madam—madam"—urged the Earl, but his tongue refused its office, and clove to the roof of his mouth.
"Hah, my Lord!" continued the Queen; "is it the astonishment of innocence, or the shame of guilt, that paralyses thy too ready tongue at this terrible moment? I see thou art guilty," she added, in a sepulchral voice; "and now thou comest before me covered with the blood of my husband."
"Swear not! Else whence do your hands tremble? Why is your face thus pale—yea, pale as Ruthven’s seemed on that other fatal night—a year ago in this chamber?"
Gathering courage from desperation, the kneeling noble, hoping to be interrupted in his vow, replied—