Chapter 30

In some breasts passion lies conceal'd and silent,
Like war's swart powder in a castle vault,
Until occasion, like the linstock, lights it:
Then comes at once the lightning--and the thunder,
And distant echoes tell that all is rent asunder.
OLD PLAY.

Roland Graeme, availing himself of a breach in the holly screen, and
of the assistance of the full moon, which was now arisen, had a
perfect opportunity, himself unobserved, to reconnoitre the persons
and the motions of those by whom his rest had been thus unexpectedly
disturbed; and his observations confirmed his jealous apprehensions.
They stood together in close and earnest conversation within four
yards of the place of his retreat, and he could easily recognize the
tall form and deep voice of Douglas, and the no less remarkable dress
and tone of the page at the hostelry of Saint Michael's.

"I have been at the door of the page's apartment," said Douglas, "but
he is not there, or he will not answer. It is fast bolted on the
inside, as is the custom, and we cannot pass through it--and what his
silence may bode I know not."

"You have trusted him too far," said the other; "a feather-headed
cox-comb, upon whose changeable mind and hot brain there is no making
an abiding impression."

"It was not I who was willing to trust him," said Douglas, "but I was
assured he would prove friendly when called upon--for----" Here he
spoke so low that Roland lost the tenor of his words, which was the
more provoking, as he was fully aware that he was himself the subject
of their conversation.

"Nay," replied the stranger, more aloud, "I have on my side put him
off with fair words, which make fools vain--but now, if you distrust
him at the push, deal with him with your dagger, and so make open
passage."

"That were too rash," said Douglas; "and besides, as I told you, the
door of his apartment is shut and bolted. I will essay again to waken
him."

Graeme instantly comprehended, that the ladies, having been somehow
made aware of his being in the garden, had secured the door of the
outer room in which he usually slept, as a sort of sentinel upon that
only access to the Queen's apartments. But then, how came Catherine
Seyton to be abroad, if the Queen and the other lady were still within
their chambers, and the access to them locked and bolted?--"I will be
instantly at the bottom of these mysteries," he said, "and then thank
Mistress Catherine, if this be really she, for the kind use which she
exhorted Douglas to make of his dagger--they seek me, as I comprehend,
and they shall not seek me in vain."