three o'clock
Yet all this time the supreme horror had been that the end was not absolutely certain . All in Fotheringay were as convinced as men could be , who had not seen the warrant nor heard it read , that Mr. Beale had brought it with him on Sunday night ; the priest , above all , from his communications with Mr. Bourgoign , was morally certain that the terror was come at last ... . It was not until the last night of Mary 's life on earth was beginning to close in that John Merton came up to the parlour , white and terrified , to tell him that he had been in his master 's room half an hour ago , and that Mr. Melville had come in to them , his face all slobbered with tears , and had told him that he had but just come from her Grace 's rooms , and had heard with his own ears the sentence read to her , and her gallant and noble answer ... . He had bidden him to go straight off to the priest , with a message from Mr. Bourgoign and himself , to the effect that the execution was appointed for eight o'clock next morning ; and that he was to be at the gate of the castle not later than three o'clock , if , by good fortune , he might be admitted when the gates were opened at seven . And now that the priest was in his place , he began again to think over that answer of the Queen . The very words of it , indeed , he did not know for a month or two later , when Mr. Bourgoign wrote to him at length ; but this , at least , he knew , that her Grace had said -LRB- and no man contradicted her at that time -RRB- that she would shed her blood to-morrow with all the happiness in the world , since it was for the cause of the Catholic and Roman Church that she died . It was not for any plot that she was to die : she professed again , kissing her Bible as she did so , that she was utterly guiltless of any plot against her sister .