At last the key turned in the lock, the door opened; the queen and Mary Seyton rushed into the garden.

The child closed the door behind them.
About two-thirds of the way across, Little Douglas held out his hand as a sign to them to stop; then, putting down the casket and the keys on the ground, he placed his hands together, and blowing into them, thrice imitated the owl's cry so well that it was impossible to believe that a human voice was uttering the sounds; then, picking up the casket and the keys, he kept on his way on tiptoe and with an attentive ear.

On getting near the wall, they again stopped, and after a moment's anxious waiting they heard a groan, then something like the sound of a falling body.
Some seconds later the owl's cry was--answered by a tu-whit-tu-whoo.
"It is over," Little Douglas said calmly; "come." "What is over ?" asked the queen; "and what is that groan we heard ?" "There was a sentry at the door on to the lake," the child answered, "but he is no longer there." The queen felt her heart's blood grow cold, at the same tine that a chilly sweat broke out to the roots of her hair; for she perfectly understood: an unfortunate being had just lost his life on her account.
Tottering, she leaned on Mary Seyton, who herself felt her strength giving way.

Meanwhile Little Douglas was trying the keys: the second opened the door.
"And the queen ?" said in a low voice a man who was waiting on the other side of the wall.
"She is following me," replied the child.
George Douglas, for it was he, sprang into the garden, and, taking the queen's arm on one side and Mary Seyton's on the other, he hurried them away quickly to the lake-side.

When passing through the doorway Mary Stuart could not help throwing an uneasy look about her, and it seemed to her that a shapeless object was lying at the bottom of the wall, and as she was shuddering all over.
"Do not pity him," said George in a low voice, "for it is a judgment from heaven.