‘It seems so,’ she replied very coldly, and yet there was a tone of utter sadness and desolation in her voice that smote on the Churchman’s heart. With looks of tender pity and concern, such as a father bends upon a favourite child, he would have argued with her once more, would fain have expounded to her the fallacies of her doctrines, and recalled her from the way which he conscientiously believed to be the very high road to destruction; but as is often the case in such disputes, the more one yielded the more the other encroached, and she cut him short with haughty impatience, reining in her horse, and pointing with outstretched arm towards the south. ‘Yonder lies your homeward way, Master Knox,’ said the Queen, ‘and here is mine; I sent for you to listen to my proposals, not to hear your pulpit declamations at secondhand. When next we meet, others may have found means to tame that haughty spirit, and the avowed rebel may be glad to solicit pardon from his sovereign. I have no further need of you; you may depart!’ The dismissal was as peremptory as it was unceremonious; though burning to reply and charged with argument, he could not pretend to misunderstand it, and unwillingly withdrew. Ere the tramp of his horse had died out on the heathery sward, Mary burst into a passion of tears which she could no longer control; then bending her head low to her horse’s neck, put ‘Black Agnes’ once more to her speed, and followed by her attendants, galloped off in the direction of St Andrews. Independent of her own private sorrows and distresses, the Queen’s political position was at this time one of peculiar difficulty and anxiety. A sincere Catholic, and consequently, from the very nature of her faith, an ardent upholder of its infallibility, and advocate for proselytism, she was compelled by the exigencies of her station to give countenance to its most determined foes. Not only did she see its tenets repudiated by the great majority of her people, but the very toleration they extorted for themselves, was denied to her, and it was a subject of open discontent that the Mass, which had been suppressed elsewhere, was suffered to be performed in the Queen’s own chapel at Holyrood. The very adviser on whom she placed the utmost reliance, her half-brother, the Earl of Moray, was the chief support of the Protestant party in her kingdom. And although Seton and a few more of her nobility remained secretly attached to the old faith, their number was comparatively trifling, and their zeal scarcely proof against the temptations of ambition and self-interest.