But there are some exceptions that cannot thus recover, some natures to whom one keen disappointment of the affections is a moral death-blow; nay, there _are_ rare cases in which such a wound is physically fatal. Mary Hamilton had never been like the same woman since Chastelâr’s death. With a pale cheek and a languid step she went about her duties indeed as usual, but the light of her life seemed to be gone, and the only time a smile ever crossed that beautiful sad face was when, in the exercise of her devotions, the soul seemed to assert its superiority over the body, and to lift itself out of this earthly darkness into the ‘everlasting day’ beyond. Everyone who came about Mary Hamilton seemed to acknowledge the refining influence of a spirit thus purified by suffering. The fiercest barons, the rudest men-at-arms felt softened and humanised while in her presence, and James Geddes the fool, after sitting gazing into her face for hours together, would break into a succession of such unearthly moans as subjected him to the discipline of the porter’s lodge forthwith. Lively Mistress Seton was losing somewhat of her spirits and her elasticity. The laugh was no longer so frequent, though it might ring out at times as saucily as ever, and the step, though light and buoyant still, had acquired a more sober and regular tread as she went upon Her Majesty’s errands through the gloomy passages of Stirling Castle. The young lady was learning to think. In her heart she did not thoroughly approve of this proposed match on which the Queen was now so bent, and considered Lord Darnley, with all his outward advantages and accomplishments, by no means good enough for her dear mistress. Mary Seton had seen through him at once, as a woman often does, and detected under that fair outside the frivolous disposition, the reckless passions, and the utter want of heart beneath. If she had given her honest opinion, she would have said Bothwell was worth a dozen of him, and his big henchman, a hundred. And what of Mary Carmichael? Proud, self-reliant, and undemonstrative, she was the last person on earth to have admitted that any anxiety or disappointment of her own could have deprived her cheek of one shade of colour, or dimmed her eye of one ray of brightness, and yet beautiful Mary Carmichael was losing day by day much of that brilliant freshness which had constituted no small portion of her beauty, and went about mournfully and in heaviness, as one who suffered keenly from some secret sorrow; yet the stranger who used to meet her in the garden at Holyrood had been seen at Stirling, and his clandestine interviews with the fair maid-of-honour had been of late more frequent than usual. If she was the happier for them, her appearance strangely belied her. Yes, the Court was very dull now. Darnley was on a sick bed, and Mary and her maidens were in trouble, one and all. CHAPTER XXXIV.