"But in vain, for all have seen it. There is not a trencher-boy in the kitchen, or a groom in the stables, but knows of it as well as I do."
"Have you never considered, sister, what a terrible thing it is to have to forget—to strive at crushing all memory of the past—all hope for the future; to rend from the heart a love it has cherished for years?"
"Years!" reiterated Margaret, with an angry laugh; "you are but eighteen, Murielle."
"And you not twenty."
"Yet I have wept for a dead husband."
"And been consoled," was the unwise reply.
Margaret's cheek grew white with suppressed passion at the inference which might be drawn from this casual remark; but she said, emphatically,—
"Enough of this; my husband, to strengthen his house, has resolved that you shall become the bride of one who is second to none in Scotland; and he has sworn it on the cross of his sword, by God and St. Bryde, that it shall be so, even should he chain you to the altar-steps, in Tongland Abbey kirk."
"Oh, Maggie," said Murielle, in a piercing voice, "do not talk to me thus. I have given my heart into the keeping of Patrick Gray, and death itself cannot restore it to me, or rend it from him. Trustingly I gave it, dear sister, yonder—yonder, at the three auld thorns of the Carlinwark; so be merciful to me, for no better, fonder, or purer love than his, was ever offered up to woman."
"A king's minion!" said the countess, spitefully; "but it is the will of God you shall never be this."