Mariette!
"Oh no! it is a spectre!" he muttered, and covered his face with his hands! Again he ventured to look up, and the same figure met his eye—the same face was gazing sadly upon him. The features—for he summoned courage to regard them fixedly—were indeed those of the Mariette Hubert he had loved so well; but the bloom of their beauty had fled; her dark French eyes had lost their lustre and vivacity; her cheeks their roses, and her lips their smiles.
Her countenance was full of grief, and expressed the most imploring pity. Hepburn gazed steadily upon her; and though for a moment he deemed her a supernatural vision, he felt no fear. Suddenly he sprang to her side, and threw an arm around her form—her passive but round and palpable form—exclaiming as he did so,—
"Mariette—my own Mariette, is it thou? By what miracle did the mercy of God enable thee to escape me? Speak—speak—convince me that it is thee, and to-morrow I will die happy; for I will be guiltless of thy death, Mariette—thine—thine! Oh, that moment of crime, of vengeance, of madness—how dear it has cost me! Speak to me, adorable Mariette—thou livest?"
"I do, dearest Bolton, by the mercy of Heaven."
"True, true!" he gasped; "for thy lover had none." He groaned aloud, and regarded her with eyes full of grief, astonishment, and passion.
"I found myself, when day was breaking, lying near the ruins of the king's house. I had been insensible I know not how long, and was covered with bruises, and almost dying; for" (she shuddered, and added with a sad but tender smile) "thou, dear heart! in the blindness of thy fury, did so nearly destroy me"——
"Oh, now! when standing upon the verge of my grave, Mariette, remind me not of that moment of dread and despair. Thou wert found"——
"By an aged man, in other days a prebend of St. Giles, Father Tarbet, who conveyed me to a cottage near the ruined convent of Placentia, where an old woman, that in a better time had been a sister of St. Katherine, dwelt; and to her care he bequeathed me. A raging fever preyed upon me long; but, by the goodness of Heaven, and the tenderness of the poor old recluse, I recovered; and, disguised in this long cloak, by presenting to the javellour of Holyrood a forged order purporting to be from the Regent Moray, have gained admittance to thy cell, and am come to save thee, John of Bolton, and to take thy place till to-morrow—to be freed as a woman, or to die in thy name as fate may direct."
Hepburn wept with rapture to find that he had not destroyed her in that fit of insanity which jealousy and passion had brought upon him; hot and salt were the tears that fell upon her hands, as he kissed them again and again.