“And how will you know that?  Do you stay at the castle, then?”

“Alas! no, madam,” replied George; “at the castle I am a useless and even a dangerous fried for you, while once beyond the lake I can serve you in an effectual manner.”

“And how will you know when Warden’s turn to mount guard has come?”

“The weathercock in the north tower, instead of turning in the wind with the others, will remain fixed against it.”

“But I, how shall I be warned?”

“Everything is already provided for on that side:  the light which shines each night in the little house in Kinross incessantly tells you that your friends keep watch for you; but when you would like to know if the hour of your deliverance approaches or recedes, in your turn place a light in this window.  The other will immediately disappear; then, placing your hand on your breast, count your heartbeats:  if you reach the number twenty without the light reappearing, nothing is yet settled; if you only reach ten, the moment approaches; if the light does not leave you time to count beyond five, your escape is fixed for the following night; if it reappears no more, it is fixed for the same evening; then the owl’s cry, repeated thrice in the courtyard, will be the signal; let down the ladder when you hear it”.

“Oh, Douglas,” cried the queen, “you alone could foresee and calculate everything thus.  Thank you, thank you a hundred times!” And she gave him her hand to kiss.

A vivid red flushed the young man’s cheeks; but almost directly mastering his emotion, he kneeled down, and, restraining the expression of that love of which he had once spoken to the queen, while promising her never more to speak of it, he took the hand that Mary extended, and kissed it with such respect that no one could have seen in this action anything but the homage of devotion and fidelity.

Then, having bowed to the queen, he went out, that a longer stay with her should not give rise to any suspicions.

At the dinner-hour Douglas brought, as he had said, a parcel of cord.  It was not enough, but when evening came Mary Seyton was to unroll it and let fall the end from the window, and George would fasten the remainder to it:  the thing was done as arranged, and without any mishap, an hour after the hunters had returned.

The following day George left the castle.

The queen and Mary Seyton lost no time in setting about the rope ladder, and it was finished on the third day.  The same evening, the queen in her impatience, and rather to assure herself of her partisans’ vigilance than in the hope that the time of her deliverance was so near, brought her lamp to the window:  immediately, and as George Douglas had told her, the light in the little house at Kinross disappeared:  the queen then laid her hand on her heart and counted up to twenty-two; then the light reappeared; they were ready for everything, but nothing was yet settled.  For a week the queen thus questioned the light and her heart-beats without their number changing; at last, on the eighth day, she counted only as far as ten; at the eleventh the light reappeared.