‘Nay, my lords,’ said she; ‘it is surely unjust to condemn the absent without proof. Let the warden return to his charge on the border. He may render himself at any time, in less than twenty-four hours from Hermitage.’ ‘You cannot refuse to ratify the deed of your council!’ urged Ruthven, fiercely. ‘Nay, Madam, you _dare_ not,’ he added, with growing insolence; and would have said more; but Mary shot a glance at him, before which even his rugged nature quailed. ‘Your Majesty’s confidence in the earl is greater than that of your advisers,’ observed Morton, not deigning to conceal a sneer. ‘Already he boasts of his influence over the Queen, and vows that steel gauntlet shall not wrest him from Holyrood, though a white glove can lure him from Hermitage.’ The colour rose on Mary’s brow, and her bosom heaved quickly. It was evident the Queen was wavering. ‘It is but a measure of precaution,’ argued Maitland, in his plausible off-hand tones, spreading at the same time the warrant before his sovereign. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘it may be but a mere brawl about a wench! The Earl of Bothwell has ever been given to such follies overmuch.’ The Queen signed the paper hastily; then threw the pen on the table, and walked in silence from the council-chamber. CHAPTER XI. ‘Oh! better for me that a blind-born child Never a line I had learn’d to trace, Than thus by a look and a laugh beguiled, To have read my doom in fair Alice’s face. ‘And better for me to have made my bed Under the yews where my fathers sleep, Calm and quiet, at rest with the dead, Than have given my heart to fair Alice to keep.’