At dinner-time, just as Lady Lochleven had informed Mary, she ascended to the queen’s apartment, in her dress of honour, and preceding four servants who were carrying the several dishes composing the prisoner’s repast, and who, in their turn, were followed by the old castle steward, having, as on days of great ceremony, his gold chain round his neck and his ivory stick in his hand.  The servants’ placed the dishes on the table, and waited in silence for the moment when it should please the queen to come out of her room; but at this moment the door opened, and in place of the queen Mary Seyton appeared.

“Madam,” said she on entering, “her grace was indisposed during the day, and will take nothing this evening; it will be useless, then, for you to wait longer.”

“Permit me to hope,” replied Lady Lochleven, “that she will change her decision; in any case, see me perform my office.”

At these words, a servant handed Lady Lochleven bread and salt on a silver salver, while the old steward, who, in the absence of William Douglas, fulfilled the duties of carver, served to her on a plate of the same metal a morsel from each of the dishes that had been brought; then, this transaction ended.

“So the queen will not appear to-day?” Lady Lochleven inquired.

“It is her Majesty’s resolve,” replied Mary Seyton.

“Our presence is then needless,” said the old lady; “but in any case the table is served, and if her grace should have need of anything else, she would have but to name it.”

With these words, Lady Lochleven, with the same stiffness and the same dignity with which she had come, withdrew, followed by her four servants and her steward.

As Lady Lochleven had foreseen, the queen, yielding to the entreaties of Mary Seyton, came out of her room at last, towards eight o’clock in the evening, sat down to table, and, served by the only maid of honour left her, ate a little; then, getting up, she went to the window.

It was one of those magnificent summer evenings on which the whole of nature seems making holiday:  the sky was studded with stars, which were reflected in the lake, and in their midst, like a more fiery star, the flame of the chafing-dish shone, burning at the stern of a little boat:  the queen, by the gleam of the light it shed, perceived George Douglas and Little Douglas, who were fishing.  However great her wish to profit by this fine evening to breathe the pure night air, the sight of this young man who had so grossly insulted her this very day made such a keen impression on her that she shut her window directly, and, retiring into her room, went to bed, and made her companion in captivity read several prayers aloud; then, not being able to sleep, so greatly was she agitated, she rose, and throwing on a mantle went again to the window the boat had disappeared.