She was so vehement that she forced upon his dull wits some of the
convictions she pretended were her own. Yet, resisting those
convictions, he cried out that she was at fault.

"At fault?" She laughed. "Let my memory inform your judgment. When
these lords, with Murray at their head, protested against our
marriage, in what terms did they frame their protest? They
complained that I had set over them without consulting them one who
had no title to it, whether by lineal descent of blood, by nature,
or by consent of the Estates. Consider that! They added, remember
- I repeat to you the very words they wrote and published - that
while they deemed it their duty to endure under me, they deemed it
intolerable to suffer under you."

She was flushed, and her eyes gleamed with excitement. She clutched
his sleeve, and brought her face close to his own, looked deep and
compellingly into his eyes as she continued:

"Such was their proclamation, and they took arms against me to
enforce it, to pull you down from the place to which I had raised
you out of the dust. Yet you can forget it, and in your purblind
folly turn to these very men to right the wrongs you fancy I have
done you. Do you think that men, holding you in such esteem as
that, can keep any sort of faith with you? Do you think these are
the men who are likely to fortify and maintain your title to the
crown? Ask yourself, and answer for yourself."

He was white to the lips. As much by her vehement pretence of
sincerity as by the apparently irrefragable logic of her arguments,
she forced conviction upon him. This brought a loathly fear in its