Yet men-at-arms still guard the very door of my chamber, and my
very attendants are hindered in their comings and goings. Do you
call this keeping faith with me? Have I not granted all the
requests of the lords?"

Lethington, perceiving the justice of what she urged, withdrew
shamed and confused at once to remedy the matter by removing the
guards from the passage and the stairs and elsewhere, leaving none
but those who paced outside the palace.

It was a rashness he was bitterly to repent him on the morrow, when
it was discovered that in the night Mary had not only escaped, but
had taken Darnley with her. Accompanied by him and a few attendants,
she had executed the plan in which earlier that day she had secured
her scared husband's cooperation. At midnight they had made their
way along the now unguarded corridors, and descended to the vaults
of the palace, whence a secret passage communicated with the chapel.
Through this and across the graveyard where lay the newly buried
body of the Siegneur Davie - almost across the very grave itself
which stood near the chapel door they had won to the horses waiting
by Darnley's orders in the open. And they had ridden so hard that
by five o'clock of that Tuesday morning they were in Dunbar.

In vain did the alarmed lords send a message after her to demand
her signature of the security upon which she had duped them into
counting prematurely.

Within a week they were in full flight before the army at the head
of which the prisoner who had slipped through their hands was
returning to destroy them. Too late did they perceive the arts by