“So saith he?” exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her.  “Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness.”  And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.

The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop’s court.

“Very like,” said Mary.  “Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul.  Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?”

Sir Amias handed the key to one of her servants but she motioned him aside.

“Those who put me forth must admit me,” she said.

The door was opened by one of the gentlemen of the household, and they entered.  Every repository had been ransacked, every cabinet stood open and empty, every drawer had been pulled out.  Wearing apparel and the like remained, but even this showed signs of having been tossed over and roughly rearranged by masculine fingers.

Mary stood in the midst of the room, which had a strange air of desolation, an angry light in her eyes, and her hands clasped tightly one into the other.  Paulett attempted some expression of regret for the disarray, pleading his orders.

“It needs not excuse, sir,” said Mary, “I understand to whom I owe this insult.  There are two things that your Queen can never take from me—­royal blood and the Catholic faith.  One day some of you will be sorry for what you have now put upon me!  I would be alone, sir,” and she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing her still fully Queen in her own apartments.  Paulett obeyed, and when he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she had preserved all this time.  She threw herself into Jean Kennedy’s arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at heart to have recovered “her bairn,” fondled and soothed her with soft Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again.  “Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little while—­only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh!  I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all.”

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at this unwonted depression, but she only said, “Get me to bed, nurse, I am sair forfaughten.”

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hardships and the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded by the recovered care and companionship of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where her treasure was kept.  Melville had refused to yield them, and all the Queen said was, “Robbery is to be added to the rest,” a sentence which greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.