"Judge me by your own rule, dear Donald," cried his wife, blandishly kissing his forehead, "and you will not again wither the mother of your boy with such a look as I just now received!"
Glad to see this reconciliation, Lord Ruthven made a sign to Murray, and they withdrew together.
Meanwhile, the honest earl surrendering his whole heart to the wiles of his wife, poured into her not inattentive ear all his wishes for Helen: all the hopes to which her late meeting with Wallace, and their present recognition, had given birth. "I had rather have that man my son," said he, "than see my beloved daughter placed on an imperial throne."
"I do not doubt it," thought Lady Mar; "for there are many emperors, but only one William Wallace!" However, her sentiments she confined to herself: neither assenting nor dissenting, but answering so as to secure the confidence by which she hoped to traverse his designs.
According to the inconsistency of the wild passion that possessed her, one moment she saw nothing but despair before her, and in the next it seemed impossible that Wallace should in heart be proof against her tenderness and charms. She remembered Murray's words: that he was sent to set her free, and that recollection reawakened every hope. Sir William had placed Lord Mar in a post as dangerous as honorable. Should the Southrons return in any force into Scotland, Stirling must be one of the first places they would attack. The earl was brave, but his wounds had robbed him of much of his martial vigor. Might she not then be indeed set free? And might not Wallace, on such an event, mean to repay her for all those sighs he now sought to repress from ideas of a virtue which she could admire, but had not the courage to imitate?
These wicked meditations passed even at the side of her husband, and, with a view to further every wish of her intoxicated imagination, she determined to spare no exertion to secure the support of her own family, which, when agreeing in one point, was the most powerful of any in the kingdom. Her father, the Earl of Strathearn, was now a misanthrope recluse in the Orkneys; she therefore did not calculate on his assistance, but she resolved on requesting Wallace to put the names of her cousins, Athol and Badenoch, into the exchange of prisoners, for by their means she expected to accomplish all she hoped. On Mar's probable speedy death she so long thought that she regarded it as a certainty, and so pressed forward to the fulfillment of her love and ambition with as much eagerness as if he were already in his grave.
She recollected that Wallace had not this time thrown her from his bosom, when in the transports of her joy she cast herself upon it; he only gently whispered, "Beware, lady, there are those present who may think my services too richly paid." With these words he had relinquished her to her husband. But in them she saw nothing inimical to her wishes; it was a caution, not a reproof, and had not his warmer address to Helen conjured up all the fiends of jealousy, she would have been perfectly satisfied with these grounds of hope-slippery though they were, like the sands of the sea.
Eager, therefore, to break away from Lord Mar's projects relating to his daughter, at the first decent opportunity she said: "We will consider more of this, Donald. I now resign you to the duties of your office, and shall pay mine to her, whose interest is our own."
Lord Mar pressed her hand to his lips, and they parted.
Prior to Wallace's visit to the citadel, which was to be at an early hour the same morning, a list of the noble prisoners was put into his hand. Edwin pointed to the name of Lord Montgomery.