"You are right, dear Murielle," replied the soldier gloomily: "I am in the king's service. To brave a useless danger and inevitable fate, would serve no end; yet, dearest Murielle, this interview may be our last."
"It may be—I know it in my aching heart; yet go—go, for the love of God and St. Bryde, lest some fresh crime be committed, and here. Alas! you know not Hugh of Ormond, or James of Abercorn, as I do. But why were our beloved William and David slain?"
"Blame not me, dear Murielle," said Gray, kissing her pale cheek with affectionate sorrow.
"Oh, Patrick, I do not blame you," replied Murielle, in a tone of misery.
"Indeed! Yet you see him before you, and clasp him to your heart like a wanton, while he has on his hands the blood of my husband!" exclaimed a clear and ringing voice. It was that of the scornful, the lovely and revengeful, yet superb Margaret, as she burst upon them through the parted arras, her pale cheek flushing and her dark eyes sparkling, but with more of anger than grief. "Vile assassin! come you here, stained with the blood of my Douglas—my brave, young, handsome lord and kinsman—of his poor boy-brother, and that hoary-headed baron, old Malcolm Fleming, whose sword was never idle when Scotland or her king required its service! Did it require three such heads to glut the hatred ye bear to the house of Douglas and Galloway? Speak!" she added, stamping her pretty foot imperiously on the rush-covered floor; "speak, thou king's minion and Falkland-bred loon!"
"Peace, sister," moaned Murielle, "oh peace——"
"Now, grant me patience, God!" exclaimed the furious countess, stretching her white hands upward—and supremely lovely that dark-eyed girl seemed, in her mingled grief and rage. "Go hence, I say, Murielle Douglas; let not that man contaminate you by his touch."
"Oh, sister Maggie, you know he loves me dearly, and I him."
"I know that he has been tutored well in the conventional hypocrisy of a court; and that you, Murielle, educated as you have been in our secluded castle of Thrave, are no match in art for such as he."
"Maggie," implored Murielle, beginning to writhe under her sister's severity, "he is generous as gentle, and gentle as brave!"