But
it was no time to agitate such questions of conscience.
"And now for the signal from the shore," exclaimed Catherine; "my
bosom tells me we shall see this night two lights instead of one gleam
from that garden of Eden--And then, Roland, do you play your part
manfully, and we will dance on the greensward like midnight fairies!"
Catherine's conjecture misgave not, nor deceived her. In the evening
two beams twinkled from the cottage, instead of one; and the page
heard, with beating heart, that the new retainer was ordered to stand
sentinel on the outside of the castle. When he intimated this news to
the Queen, she held her hand out to him--he knelt, and when he raised
it to his lips in all dutiful homage, he found it was damp and cold as
marble. "For God's sake, madam, droop not now,--sink not now!"
"Call upon our Lady, my Liege," said the Lady Fleming--"call upon
your tutelar saint."
"Call the spirits of the hundred kings you are descended from,"
exclaimed the page; "in this hour of need, the resolution of a monarch
were worth the aid of a hundred saints."
"Oh! Roland Graeme," said Mary, in a tone of deep despondency, "be
true to me--many have been false to me. Alas! I have not always been
true to myself. My mind misgives me that I shall die in bondage, and
that this bold attempt will cost all our lives. It was foretold me by
a soothsayer in France, that I should die in prison, and by a violent
death, and here comes the hour--Oh, would to God it found me
prepared!"
"Madam," said Catherine Seyton, "remember you are a Queen.
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