"Can you ask me? The dungeon of the castle—the high court of parliament—the solemn sentence—the ignominious scaffold—the spiked head—the blighted name, and the torn banner; yet each and all of these I can avert, if—if——"
"What?"
"Thou wilt only try to love me!"
"Horrible! love thee? Oh, this is mere insanity!"
"I, who have done, can undo. I will restore him to his power at court, his coronet, his castles, and his baronies, to his seat in parliament, his offices of great cupbearer to the king and governor of Blackness; I will restore him to the world, to rank, to honour, yea, to life itself, I may say, for it is doubly forfeited, if thou wilt but love me. Thy mother, old, infirm, and broken in spirit by grief, by shame, and wounded pride, I will take from that lonely island prison, where she is exposed to so many severe degradations and privations, from the damp mists of the German Sea, and many other miseries that old age cannot long endure, and will restore her to her wonted place, as mistress of the household and first lady of the court, if thou wilt but love me. A hundred gallant knights of her father's house, with the great Angus himself, shall be restored to place, to power, to home, to happiness, and to honour, and the Hamiltons of Arran shall be subverted and exiled to Cadyow and Kinniel, even though I should unroll my own banner against them, if thou wilt only permit me to love thee in return. Still no reply! Think, lady, think of all I say, for these things are well worth pondering over. All these may be done by a word, but withhold that word, and they shall remain undone. Dost thou hear me, lady?"
"Yes; I have heard that thou who hast done can undo!"
"And thine answer?"
"Is—that I despise and abhor thee, from whom my kinsmen of Seton and Douglas have endured so much;" and she turned haughtily away.
"Be it so," said he, calmly but sternly. "Then, let banishment and proscription, the headsman's axe and the doomster's hand, hang over the lords and barons, the knights and adherents of Ashkirk and of Angus; let infamy and vengeance, destruction and death, dog them close, since thou hast abandoned them—thou who by a word could have saved them all. They are each but as puppets in my hands—puppets whose destiny I may lengthen or shorten as I choose, for the strings of their fate are in my power, and I will be merciless to them, as thou, Jane Seton, hast been this day to me!"
Jane trembled, and her heart swelled as if it would have burst; for she knew too bitterly the truth of all Sir Adam said, and she felt that, hated and bloodstained, cool, calculating, and detestable, as this man was, she could have sacrificed herself to his insane passion to save her mother, her brother, her family and kinsmen—for kindred blood was then a sacred tie in Scotland—but for Roland.