train, and the gates of his heart stood ever wide to fear. He
stepped aside to a chair, and sank into it, looking at her with
dilating eyes - a fool confronted with the likely fruits of his
folly.

"Then - then - why did they proffer me their help? How can they
achieve their ends this way?"

"How? Do you still ask? Do you not see what a blind tool you
have been in their crafty hands? In name at least you are king,
and your signature is binding upon my subjects. Have you not
brought them back from exile by one royal decree, whilst by another
you have dispersed the Parliament that was assembled to attaint
them of treason?"

She stepped close up to him, and bending ,over him as he sat there,
crushed by realization, she lowered her voice.

"Pray God, my lord, that all their purpose with you is not yet
complete, else in their hands I do not think your life is to be
valued at an apple-paring. You go the ways poor Davie went."

He sank his handsome head to his hands, and covered his face. A
while he sat huddled there, she watching him with gleaming, crafty
eyes. At length he rallied. He looked up, tossing back the auburn
hair from his white brow, still fighting, though weakly, against
persuasion. "It is not possible," he, cried. "They could not!
They could not!"

She laughed, betwixt bitterness and sadness.