Halbert dreaded to see the animated light which now cheered him from the eyes of his master, overclouded with the Cimmerian horrors his story must unfold; he evaded a direct reply; "I saw your guest in safety; I saw him and the iron box on their way to Bothwell?"
"What!" inquired Wallace, "were we mistaken? was not the earl dead when we looked into the well?" Halbert replied in the negative, and was proceeding with a circumstantial account of his recovery and his departure when Wallace interrupted him.
"But what of my wife, Halbert? why tell me of others before of her?
She whose safety and remembrance are now my sole comfort!"
"Oh, my dear lord!" cried Halbert, throwing himself on his knees in a paroxysm of mental agony, "she remembers you where best her prayers can be heard. She kneels for her beloved Wallace, before the throne of God!"
"Halbert!" cried Sir William, in a low and fearful voice, "what would you say? My Marion—speak! tell me in one word, she lives!"
"In heaven!"
At this confirmation of a sudden terror, imbibed from the ambiguous words of Halbert, and which his fond heart would not allow him to acknowledge to himself. Wallace covered his face with his hands and fell with a deep groan against the side of the cavern. The horrid idea of premature maternal pains, occasioned by anguish for him; of her consequent death, involving perhaps that of her infant, struck him to the soul; a mist seemed passing over his eyes; life was receding; and gladly did he believe he felt his spirit on the eve of joining hers.
In having declared that the idol of his master's heart no longer existed for him in this world, Halbert thought he had revealed the worst, and he went on. "Her latest breath was sent in prayer for you. 'My Wallace' were the last words her angel spirit uttered as it issued from her bleeding wounds."
The cry that burst from the heart of Wallace, as he started on his feet at this horrible disclosure, seemed to pierce through all the recessed of the glen; and with an instantaneous and dismal return was re-echoed from rock to rock. Halbert threw his arms round his master's knees. The frantic blaze of his eyes struck him with affright. "Hear me, my lord; for the sake of your wife, now an angel hovering near you, hear what I have to say."
Wallace looked around with a wild countenance. "My Marion near me! Blessed spirit! Oh, my murdered wife! my unborn babe! Who made those wounds?" cried he, catching Halbert's arm with a tremendous though unconscious grasp; "tell me who had the heart to aim a blow at that angel's life?"