He knew it must be said; yet he feared its saying, and with a quick wit he spoke of that which he knew would divert his friend.
"And the Queen of the Scots," he said.

"Have you heard more of her ?" Now Anthony Babington was one of those spirits that live largely within themselves, and therefore see that which is without through a haze or mist of their own moods.

He read much in the poets; you would say that Vergil and Ovid, as well as the poets of his own day, were his friends; he lived within, surrounded by his own images, and therefore he loved and hated with ten times the ardour of a common man.

He was furious for the Old Faith, furious against the new; he dreamed of wars and gallantry and splendour; you could see it even in his dress, in his furred doublet, the embroideries at his throat, his silver-hilted rapier, as well as in his port and countenance: and the burning heart of all his images, the mirror on earth of Mary in heaven, the emblem of his piety, the mistress of his dreams--she who embodied for him what the courtiers in London protested that Elizabeth embodied for them--the pearl of great price, the one among ten thousand--this, for him, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, now prisoner in her cousin's hands, going to and fro from house to house, with a guard about her, yet with all the seeming of liberty and none of its reality....
The rough bitterness died out of the boy's face, and a look came upon it as of one who sees a vision.
"Queen Mary ?" he said, as if he pronounced the name of the Mother of God.

"Yes; I have heard of her....