"Such have we ever been, since that fatal day on which my cousins, William and David, were slain. That was in 1440, ten long, long years ago; but—"
"A crisis in our fate is coming now, dear Murielle."
"But say why—oh, why are you here—here in Thrave, here, where your life is in peril so deadly?"
"I am come, in our good king's name, to demand MacLellan's release, and to invite the earl, under cartel, to meet the council at Stirling, that all these evils may be peacefully ended."
"I pray to the kind Father of all, and to his Blessed Mother, who is in heaven, that it may be so," sighed poor Murielle. "But oh, I am so weary, weary—so sad and weary here! They keep me quite a prisoner, though not so cruelly as they keep Sir Thomas MacLellan; for I am told by Marion Douglas that he is confined in the pit."
"Mahoun! say you so, dearest—in that horrid vault?"
"Yes; but hush—we may be overheard."
"Ah! my brave and noble kinsman—such a doom! Was it not in that dungeon that Earl Archibald, the first duke of Touraine, kept MacLellan, the laird of Borgue, chained, like a wild beast, till he became a jabbering idiot, and when found by the prior of St. Mary's Isle, he was laughing as he strove to catch the single sunbeam that fell through the grated slit into his prison—yea, striving fatuously to catch it with his thin, wan, fettered hand—the same hand that carried the king's banner at the battle of Homildon!"
"Do not frown thus, my dearest heart," said Murielle, weeping; "I have little need to add to the hatred that grows apace in every breast against the name of Douglas."
"Do not say in every breast, sweet Murielle—sweet wife," he added, pressing her close and closer still in his embrace; "for my heart is wrung with anguish and with love for you, and of this love God alone knoweth the depth and the strength!"