the tapestried wall. The Countess of Argyll, in a tall chair on the
Queen's left, sat with elbows on the table watching the Seigneur
Davie's fine fingers as they plucked softly at the strings of a
long-necked lute. The talk, which, intimate and untrammelled, had
lately been of the child of which Her Majesty was to be delivered
some three months hence, was flagging now, and it was to fill the
gap that Rizzio had taken up the lute.

His harsh countenance was transfigured as he caressed the strings,
his soul absorbed in the theme of his inspiration. Very softly -
indeed, no more than tentatively as yet - he was beginning one of
those wistful airs in which his spirit survives in Scotland to this
day, when suddenly the expectant hush was broken by a clash of
curtain-rings. The tapestries that masked the door had been swept
aside, and on the threshold, unheralded, stood the tall, stripling
figure of the young King.

Darnley's appearance abruptly scattered the Italian's inspiration.
The melody broke off sharply on the single loud note of a string
too rudely plucked.

That and the silence that followed it irked them all, conveying a
sense that here something had been broken which never could be made
whole again.

Darnley shuffled forward. His handsome face was pale save for the
two burning spots upon his cheekbones, and his eyes glittered
feveredly. He had been drinking, so much was clear; and that he
should seek the Queen thus, who so seldom sought her sober, angered
those intimates who had come to share her well-founded dislike of