At first the lady started back, and was very indignant with him for daring to suggest that she should do such a dishonourable thing.
"I am no traitor," she said proudly, "nor am I like Jael of old, who murdered the man who took shelter in her tent."
But the captain's voice was low and sweet, and the lady's nature was vain and fickle, and the prospect of marrying an English lord was very enticing, and so it came about that at last she yielded, and she told him how she was expecting young Wallace that very night at seven o'clock, and she promised to put a light in the window when he arrived.
Then the false woman went into her house and shut the door, and the soldiers set themselves to watch for the coming of their enemy.
How it happened I know not, but Wallace came, and walked boldly into the house without one of them seeing him, and he ran upstairs and knocked at the door of his friend's room.
When she opened it, he stood still, and stared at her in astonishment, for her face was pale and wild, and she looked at him with terror in her eyes. I warrant she had been wrestling with her conscience ever since she had spoken with the soldiers, and she had seen what an awful thing it is to be guilty of the blood of an innocent man.
"What ails thee?" cried Wallace, in his bluff, hearty way. "Thou lookest all distraught, as if thou hadst seen a ghost."
Then he held out his hand as if to greet her, but she stretched forth hers and pushed him away.
"Touch me not. I am like Judas,—Judas," she moaned, "who betrayed the innocent blood, and whose fate is written in the Holy Book for a warning to all poor recreants like to me."
Sir William Wallace thought that she had gone mad. "Vex not thyself," he said kindly. "Methinks thou hast been reading, and thinking, till thou hast fevered thy poor brain. Thou art no Judas, but mine own true friend, in whose house I find safe shelter when I need to visit Lanark."