**This bequest of Wallace is a fact.
Here Wallace paused. Helen had listened to him with a holy attention, which hardly allowed a sigh to breathe from her steadfast heart. She spoke, but the voice was scarcely audible.
"And what for him who loves you dearer than life—for Edwin? He cannot be forgotten!"
Wallace started at this; then she was ignorant of the death of that too-faithful friend! In a hurrying accent he replied, "Never forgotten! Oh, Helen. I asked for him life; and Heaven gave him long life, even forever and ever!"
Helen's eyes met his, with a look of inquiry:
"That would mean he is gone before you?"
The countenance of Wallace answered her.
"Happy Edwin!" cried she, and the tears rained over her cheeks as she bent her head on her arms. Wallace continued—
"He laid down his life to preserve mine in the hovel of Lumloch. The false Monteith could get no Scot to lay hands on their true defender; and even the foreign ruffians he brought to the task might have spared the noble boy, but an arrow from the traitor himself pierced his heart. Contention was then no more, and I resigned myself, to follow him."
"What a desert does the world become!" exclaimed Helen; then turning on Wallace with a saint-like smile, she added, "I would hardly now withhold you. You will bear him Helen's love, and tell him how soon I shall be with you. If your Father would not allow my heart to break, in his mercy he may take my soul in the prayers which I shall hourly breathe to him!"