With that eager grace so charming to see but indescribable in words, Iola caught his hand and kissed it, as he gazed upon her with a look of doubt and wonder.
"It is all false," she cried, "all utterly false! She is yours--has been yours always. True, through wrong, and persecution, and deceit, she is yours still--yours only."
"False," cried Boyd. "False? How can it be false? With my own eyes I saw the announcement of his sister's marriage to James Hamilton, in the king's own hand."
"He signed the contract," cried Iola, "without her consent; but she tore the contract, and refused to ratify it."
"But my letters, my unanswered letters?" said Boyd.
"She has been watched and guarded, surrounded by spies and deceivers," exclaimed Iola, eagerly. "Hear all I have to tell you. Much may even then remain to be explained, but, believe me, oh, believe me, all will be explained clearly and with ease."
"I know that one traitor, that John Radnor, was bought to tell her I was dead, when not ten days before he had spoken to me--me, ever his kind and generous lord--and knew that I was safe and well. I saw the proof of the villain's treachery; and I slew him; but, oh, I cannot think that there are many such. Yet they have been fiends of hell indeed; for torture, such as the damned undergo, were not more than they have fixed on me, by making me think my Mary, my beautiful, my devoted, false to him she loved."
"Oh, she was never false," cried Iola. "They thought to cheat her to her own despair, by tales of your death; but the instinct of true love taught her to doubt, till she had seen your tomb with her own eyes."
"I will go to her. I will go to her," cried the earl of Arran, rising up, and taking a step or two towards the door. But there he paused, and asked, "Does she still believe me dead?"
"She does," replied Iola, "though perhaps a spark of hope is kindled."