‘Do not say so,’ she continued, speaking very rapidly and eagerly, with her slender fingers grasping the prisoner’s arm like a vice. ‘I would not have told you this but that we shall never meet again. The very terms on which the Queen yielded to my entreaties were these: That you leave Scotland within twenty-four hours, and pledge your honour never to enter Mary Stuart’s dominions more. Oh, if you knew how I knelt and prayed and pleaded ere I could wring from her the token that gave me access here; if you could have seen her angry frown while I implored, or heard the cold resolute voice in which she said at last, “I consent, but only on these terms, that I never behold him more,” you would have pitied me, Chastelâr; you should pity me now, for though I have saved your life, oh, I am very, very miserable.’ Again she burst into a fit of weeping, the hot tears fell upon his hand, but he heeded them not; he scarce seemed conscious of the devoted broken-hearted woman trembling there before him; the Queen’s words struck like a poniard to his heart, and he was mad! love-mad once more! He broke rudely from his companion; he flung her hand from his arm, as if the touch were a viper’s; his eye glared, and he ground his teeth together in the agony of a wounded spirit, and a pride humbled to the dust. ‘I scorn her mercy!’ he shouted, in wild frantic tones; ‘I renounce her pardon, and I refuse her terms! Tell Mary Stuart, from me, from Chastelâr, who will be led out to die at sunrise to-morrow, that the last words he said were these: “If every one of these hairs were a life”’--he passed his fingers while he spoke through the abundance of his dark clustering locks--‘“I would lose them all ere I would accept the smallest, lightest token of the Queen’s favour. Because I have dared to love her more dearly than man ever loved woman here on earth; because I love her wildly, fondly, madly still.” Ha, ha! she cannot rob me of that! Queen though she be, she cannot recall the past! Mary, Mary! ere to-morrow’s sun be set, that cold heart shall ache, as it hath never ached yet, and Chastelâr will have had his revenge!’ And now the pure unselfish nature of Mary Hamilton’s character rose superior to the crisis. Another who had loved him less would have turned away in wrathful scorn, and left him to his fate: not so that gentle, faithful heart; on her knees she besought him to listen to reason, to yield himself to her guidance, to accept of life for her sake. The moments were very precious. Already James Geddes was beating impatiently at the door, warning them that he had fulfilled his ministering in the guard-room, and that Ogilvy was absent for the nonce. She clung to him--she urged him--she implored him, and the man was obdurate, pitiless of himself as of her, hardened in his despair, reckless, miserable, and resolved to die.