"Dearest Maggie," said he, gazing tenderly and conscience-stricken upon her pure and pale Madonna face, and with that expression of eye that speaks of a love verging on idolatry, while he smoothed the thick tresses of her rich soft hair, "dearest Maggie, I must end this painful and unmanly secrecy, by avowing my passion, and our marriage, to the people."
"Alas! then how shall I, a poor weak girl, withstand the power of two ambitious kings?"
"Thou wrongest my good father, dear Margaret. His heart is as free from ambition as from guile!"
"But not from the cold policy that would wed you to a princess."
"I am not the first of our royal line who has wedded the daughter of a baron."
"No—but from that I can gather but little hope," sighed Margaret.
"David II. married Margaret Logie, the daughter of a knight."
"Ah! and how fared she? Repudiated by her husband when his love grew cold—banished from his court, penniless and poor, she sought the protection of Urban V. at Avignon, and died of a broken heart among strangers; so that we know not where she, a queen of Scotland, found a grave. Better far, had she wedded in her own degree, to die beloved, and sleep among her kindred in the old chapel of Rattray."
"But this was more than a hundred and thirty years ago; and since that time Robert III. married Annabella Drummond, of your own family."
"Alas, again! was she happy?"