Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

o a m tt a ~ <7 © r wih, 2 oI DE Area a a ela oye ee x het st ae eine an Foc She Sabin: Y WAS ; f Fe a < eee ros conquer her Firesccteas she pee of David ice, wedi 3 a ; Darnley had murdered almost at her feet, and whom this night was” ie to avenge. She thought of the Judas part that he had played in that aan affair, and sought persuasion that it was fitting he should now be - paid in kind. Yet, very woman that she was, failing to find any such persuasion, she boned instead in the very thought of Rizzio the very means to convey her warning. . ; Standing tense and white by the door, regarding him with diane eyes, she jocks her last words to him. oe “Tt would be just about this time last year that Davie was slain,” ai 2 she said, and on that passed out to the waiting Bothwell. ie a Once on the stairs she paused and set a hand upon the shoulder of the stalwart Borderer. “Must it be? Oh, must it be?” she whispered fearfully. She caught the flash of his eyes in the half gloom as he leaned over her, his arm about her waist drawing her to him. “Ts it not just? Is it not full merited?” he asked her. a “And yet I would that we did not profit by it,” she complained. “Shall we pity him on that account?” he asked, and laughed softly and shortly. “Come away, he added abruptly. ' “They wait for youl” And so, by the suasion of his arm and his imperious will, she was a swept onward along the road of her destiny. ead Outside the horses were ready. There was a little group of ache’ er men to escort her, and half a dozen servants with lighted torches, — oe whilst Lady Reres was in waiting. A man stood forward to assist her a to mount, his face and hands so Slétieed by gunpowder that for a : moment he failed to recognize him. She laughed nervously when he named himself. a7 “Lord, Paris, how begrimed you are!” she cried; and, mounting, 3G : rode away towards Holyrood with her tofch-bearers and attendants. In the room above, Darnley lay considering her last words. He 4 turned them over in his thoughts, assured by the tone she had used” and how she had looked that they contained some message. <e “It would be just about this time last year that Davie was slain.” In themselves, those words were not strictly accurate. It wanted ° yet a month to the anniversary of Rizzio’s death. And why, at parting, — should she have reminded him of that which she had agreed should "com cbooks com ‘ INS) 5) aah ™ 2 - : We ge, ook eaT ‘i; << hr “— * ‘ ‘ a ae a waa Ss i