“Time presses, madam; time presses,” cried Melville, looking at the sand, which, placed on the table, was marking the time. “They are coming back, they will be here in a minute; and this time you must give them an answer. Listen, madam, and at least profit by your situation as much as you can. You are alone here with one woman, without friends, without protection, without power: an abdication signed at such a juncture will never appear to your people to have been freely given, but will always pass as having been torn from you by force; and if need be, madam, if the day comes when such a solemn declaration is worth something, well, then you will have two witnesses of the violence done you: the one will be Mary Seyton, and the other,” he added in a low voice and looking uneasily about him,—“the other will be Robert Melville.” Hardly had he finished speaking when the footsteps of the two nobles were again heard on the staircase, returning even before the quarter of an hour had elapsed; a moment afterwards the door opened, and Ruthven appeared, while over his shoulder was seen Lindsay’s head. “Madam,” said Ruthven, “we have returned. Has your Grace decided? We come for your answer.” “Yes,” said Lindsay, pushing aside Ruthven, who stood in his way, and advancing to the table,—“yes, an answer, clear, precise, positive, and without dissimulation.” “You are exacting, my lord,” said the queen: “you would scarcely have the right to expect that from me if I were in full liberty on the other side of the lake and surrounded with a faithful escort; but between these walls, behind these bars, in the depths of this fortress, I shall not tell you that I sign voluntarily, lest you should not believe it. But no matter, you want my signature; well, I am going to give it to you. Melville, pass me the pen.” “But I hope,” said Lord Ruthven, “that your Grace is not counting on using your present position one day in argument to protest against what you are going to do?” The queen had already stooped to write, she had already set her hand to the paper, when Ruthven spoke to her. But scarcely had he done so, than she rose up proudly, and letting fall the pen, “My lord,” said she, “what you asked of me just now was but an abdication pure and simple, and I was going to sign it. But if to this abdication is joined this marginal note, then I renounce of my own accord, and as judging myself unworthy, the throne of Scotland. I would not do it for the three united crowns that I have been robbed of in turn.” “Take care, madam,” cried Lord Lindsay, seizing the queen’s wrist with his steel gauntlet and squeezing it with all his angry strength—“take care, for our patience is at an end, and we could easily end by breaking what would not bend.”