Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ye fe Ao Fes i: a p, ie hae on ~ HISTORICAL NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT ee "= 71 ~ fag smieelt she vide Gases Ohana Kirk o’ Field than at Lichen wae Be when she was not bearing Darnley company in his chamber, and — x beguiling the tedium of his illness, she was to be seen walking in ie . Ee garden with-Lady Reres, and from his bed he could hear her some-— times singing as she sauntered there. — Never since the ephemeral season of their ee had she been pei on such fond terms with him, and all his fears of hostile designs entertained against him by her immediate followers were stilled at _ last. Yet not for long. Into his fool’s paradise came Lord Robert of Holyrood, with‘’a warning that flung him into a sweat of panic. The conspirators had hired a few trusted assistants to help them ie carry out their plans, and a rumour had got abroad—in the unac- | 2 countable way of rumours—that there was danger to the King. It was of this rumour that Lord Robert brought him word, telling him ~ Ee bluntly that unless hé escaped quickly from this place, he would a leave his life there. Yet when Darnley had repeated this to the Queen, and the Queen indignantly had sent for Lord Robert and demanded to know his meaning, his lordship denied thathe had uttered any such warning, protested that his words must have been misunder- stood—that they referred. solely to the King’s condition, which de- ih manded, he thought, different treatment and healthier air. Be Knowing not what to believe, Darnley’s uneasiness abode with him. Ber Yet, trusting Mary, and feeling secure so long as she was by his side, he became more and more insistent upon her presence, more and more fretful in her absence. It was to quiet him that she consented __ to sleep as often as might be at Kirk o’ Field. She slept there on the Wednesday of that week, and again on Friday, and she was to have 4 done so yet again on that fateful Sunday, February 9th, but that her servant Sebastien—one who had accompanied her from France, and _ for whom she had a deep affection—was that day married, and Her Majesty had promised to be present at the masque that night at Holyrood, in honour of his nuptials. a - Nevertheless, she did not utterly neglect her husband on that ac. count. She rode to Kirk o’ Field early in the evening, accompanied by igs Bothwell, Huntly, Argyll, and some others; and leaving the lords x at cards below to while away the time, she repaired to Darnley, and ap Ake;