‘See to what your schemes and your intrigues have led at last! Is this the upshot of my Lord of Moray’s plotting and counter-plotting, and Randolph’s promises, and Maitland’s crabbed ciphers? Faith! a couple of hundred spears and a closed horse-litter would have done the work long ago far better than all your bonds and all your treaties. And now it is too late. The noblest Queen in Europe, the fairest woman on earth, is to be wasted on a half-witted boy, a beardless minion of the English Court. Out upon you, Earl Moray! I have worn steel since I was twelve years old, and man hath never so deceived me yet. Again I cry shame on you! Answer me how you will!’ If Moray was startled at the intelligence or angered at the manner in which it was conveyed, neither sensation was suffered to betray itself for an instant. He smiled pleasantly on his chafing companion, and answered composedly-- ‘All’s not lost that’s in hazard. Surely no lord in Scotland knows this better than the warden of the marshes. Tell me the worst intelligence you have gained, and how you learned it.’ Moray’s brow grew darker and darker as his host detailed to him, not without violent gestures and many a wrathful expletive, all he had gathered from Maxwell concerning the Queen’s proposed marriage. Whether new to him or not, the intelligence seemed to give him great concern, and once, although it was now twilight, he turned his face from the window so as to conceal its expression from his dupe. When Bothwell had finished his story there was a dead silence for a few minutes. He had lashed himself into a violent passion; he was now calming down into a sullen despair. Moray’s face, on the contrary, wore a brighter look after he had ruminated a while, but his voice was as cold and distinct as ever when he spoke again. ‘And the messenger is here, you say--here, in this very castle. Lord Bothwell, if we gain time, we can place the pieces on the chess-board for ourselves. Your borders here are not without their disadvantages. ’Tis bad travelling for single horsemen; they may be robbed of letters and even jewels. Nay, if they make much resistance they are sometimes heard of no more. ’Tis a numerous family, the Maxwells, and a loyal. One more or less makes no such great odds.’ ‘Nay, nay, he is my kinsman,’ urged Bothwell, who perfectly understood the dark suggestion of his guest, but to whose frank and ardent nature such counsels were most distasteful. ‘Besides, she trusted me; she trusted me. My Queen’s own words were, that “she could depend upon me more securely than on any lord in Scotland.”’