"Oh! that the ears of Wallace could hear thee!" cried Lady Ruthven.
"They will, some time, my gracious aunt," answered she, with an angelic smile.
"When? where, dearest?" asked Lady Ruthven, hoping that she began to have fairer anticipations for herself. Helen answered not; but pointing to the sky, rose from her seat with an air as if she were really going to ascend to those regions which seemed best fitted to receive her pure spirit. Lady Ruthven gazed on her in speechless admiration; and without a word, or an impeding motion, felt Helen softly kiss her hand, and with another seraphic smile, glide gently from her into her closet, and close the door.
Far different were the emotions which agitated the bosoms of every person present at the entry of Sir William Wallace. All but himself regarded it as the triumph of the King of Scotland. And while some of the nobles exulted in their future monarch, the major part felt the demon of envy so possess their souls, that they who, before his arrival, were ready to worship his name, now looked on the empire to which he seemed borne on the hearts of the people, with a rancorous jealousy, which from that moment vowed his humiliation, or the fall of Scotland. The very tongues which in general acclaim, called loudest, "Long live our king!" belonged to those who, in the secret recesses of their souls, swore to work his ruin, and to make these full-blown honors the means of his destruction. He had in vain tried to check what his moderate desires deemed the extravagant gratitude of the people; but finding his efforts only excited still louder demonstrations of their love, and knowing himself immovable in his resolution to remain a subject of the crown, he rode on composedly toward the citadel.
Those ladies who had not retired from the cavalcade to hail their regent a second time from their windows, preceded him in Lady Mar's train to the hall, where she had caused a sumptuous feast to be spread to greet his arrival. Two seats were placed under a canopy of cloth of gold, at the head of the board. The countess stood there in all the splendor of her ideal rank, and would have seated Wallace in the royal chair on her right hand, but he drew back.
"I am only a guest in this citadel," returned he; "and it would ill become me to take the place of the master of the banquet."
As he spoke, he looked on Lord Mar, who, understanding the language of his eyes, which never said the thing he would not, without a word took the kingly seat, and so disappointed the countess. By this refusal she still found herself as no more than the Governor of Stirling's wife, when she had hoped a compliance with her cunning arrangement would have hinted to all that she was to be the future queen of their acknowledged sovereign. They knew Wallace, saw his unshaken resolution in this apparently slight action; but others who read his design in their own ambition, translated it differently, and deemed it only an artful rejection of the appendages of royalty, to excite the impatience of the people to crown him in reality.
As the ladies took their seats at the board, Edwin, who stood by the chair of his beloved lord, whispered:
"Our Helen is not here."
Lady Mar overheard the name of Helen, but she could not distinguish Wallace's reply; and fearing that some second assignation of more happy termination than that of the chapel might be designed, she determined that if Edwin were to be the bearer of a secret correspondence between the man she loved and the daughter she hated, to deprive them speedily of so ready an assistant.