him. King though he might be in name, into such contempt was he
fallen that not one of them rose in deference, whilst Mary herself
watched his approach with hostile, mistrusting eyes.

"What is it, my lord?" she asked him coldly, as he flung himself
down on the settle beside her.

He leered at her, put an arm about her waist, pulled her to him,
and kissed her oafishly.

None stirred. All eyes were upon them, and all faces blank. After
all, he was the King and she his wife. And then upon the silence,
ominous as the very steps of doom, came a ponderous, clanking tread
from the ante-room beyond. Again the curtains were thrust aside,
and the Countess of Argyll uttered a gasp of sudden fear at the
grim spectre she beheld there. It was a figure armed as for a
tourney, in gleaming steel from head to foot, girt with a sword,
the right hand resting upon the hilt of the heavy dagger in the
girdle. The helmet's vizor was raised, revealing the ghastly face
of Ruthven - so ghastly that it must have seemed the face of a dead
man but for the blazing life in the eyes that scanned the company.
Those questing eyes went round the table, settled upon Rizzio, and
seemed horribly to smile.

Startled, disquieted by this apparition, the Queen half rose,
Darnley's hindering arm still flung about her waist.

"What's this?" she cried, her voice sharp.

And then, as if she guessed intuitively what it might portend, she