All this time Mr Randolph had not been idle at the Court of Holyrood, fulfilling his ministering with a tact and energy peculiarly his own, and valued as they deserved by his bustling mistress and her astute adviser, the celebrated Cecil. Wherever there was an intrigue brewing, the English ambassador was not to be satisfied until he was at the bottom of it; wherever there was a mystery he sifted it thoroughly; analysing with diplomatic chemistry its component parts, and amalgamating the whole into a confusion worse confounded when he had done with it. The many marriage proposals to the Queen kept his hands full, and the contradictory orders he received from his sovereign, who, with all her great qualities, was sufficiently a woman never to be quite sure of her own mind for two consecutive days, by no means tended to simplify or facilitate the duties of his office. Nevertheless he found time to press his suit ardently with Mary Beton, insinuating himself sufficiently into her affections to worm out of her all the intelligence he could possibly obtain, yet with characteristic caution never failing to stop short of the boundary beyond which he must compromise or embarrass himself. And yet Mr Randolph, with his clever scheming, well-balanced mind, and his thoroughly disciplined heart, was but human after all: none other was so pleasant to him as this daily duty of making love to Mary Beton; her dignity and her beauty gratified his fastidious taste, and her obvious admiration of himself could not but make an impression on his callous heart. Sometimes, even over him, the hardened man of the world, stole a soft vision of something better than ciphers, and protocols, and despatches--of pleasant words and loving looks, and little children and a home; but a moment of reflection brushed all such weaknesses from his path, and the perusal of a state-paper from Cecil soon restored him to his philosophy. Then he remembered that in a career like his every stepping-stone to greatness must be prized and used only as such; however fair its polish, however valuable its quality, it must be crushed under his heel to gain a firmer foot-hold, and spurned in turn when done with, for his upward spring to the next. Randolph sought out tools for his own purpose in all directions; when he failed to find an appropriate instrument, he shaped one to his hand for himself.