"Cease to urge me, unhappy lady," returned Wallace; "you already know the decision of this ever-widowed heart."
Lady Mar looked steadfastly at him.
"Then receive my last determination!" and drawing near him with a desperate and portentous countenance, as if she meant to whisper in his ear, she suddenly plucked St. Louis' dagger from his girdle and struck it into his breast. He caught the hand which grasped the hilt. Her eyes glared with the fury of a maniac, and, with a horrid laugh, she exclaimed: "I have slain thee, insolent triumpher in my love and agonies! Thou shalt not now deride me in the arms of thy minion; for, I know that it is not for the dead Marion you have trampled on my heart but for the living Helen!"
As she spoke, he moved her hold from the dagger, and drew the weapon from the wound. A torrent of blood flowed over his vest, and stained the hand that grasped hers. She turned of a deadly paleness, but a demoniac joy still gleamed in her eyes.
"Lady Mar," cried he, while he thrust the thickness of his scarf into the wound, "I pardon this outrage. Go in peace, I shall never breathe to man nor woman the occurrences of this night. Only remember, that with regard to Lady Helen, my wishes are as pure as her own innocence."
"So they may be now, vainly boasting, immaculate Wallace!" answered she, with bitter derision; "men are saints when their passions are satisfied. Think not to impose on her who knows how this vestal Helen followed you in page's attire, and without one stigma being cast upon her maiden delicacy. I am not to learn the days and nights she passed alone with you in the woods of Normandy? Did you not follow her to France? Did you not tear her from the arms of Lord Aymer de Valence? and now, relinquishing her yourself, you leave a dishonored bride to cheat the vows of some honester man! Wallace, I know you, and as I have been fool enough to love you beyond all woman's love, I swear by the powers of heaven and hell to make you feel the weight of woman's hatred!"
Her denunciation had no effect on Wallace; but her slander against her unoffending daughter-in-law agitated him with an indignation that almost dispossessed him of himself. In hurried and vehement words, he denied all that she had alleged against Helen, and appealed to the whole court of France to witness her spotless innocence. Lady Mar exulted in this emotion, though every sentence, by the interest it displayed in its object, seemed to establish the truth of a suspicion which she at first only uttered from the vague workings of her revenge. Triumphing in the belief that he had found another as frail as herself, and yet maddened that another should have been preferred before her, her jealous pride blazed into redoubled flame.
"Swear," cried she, "till I see the blood of that false heart forced to my feet, and still I shall believe the base daughter of Mar a wanton. I go, not to proclaim her dishonor to the world, but to deprive her of her lover; to yield the rebel Wallace into the hands of justice! When on the scaffold, proud exulter in those by me now detested beauties, remember that it was Joanna Strathearn who laid thy matchless head upon the block; who consigned those limbs, of Heaven's own statuary, to decorate the spires of Scotland! Remember that my curse pursues you, here and hereafter!"
A livid fire seemed to dart from her scornful eyes, her countenance was torn as by some internal fiend, and, with the last malediction thundering from her tongue, she darted from his sight.