The Lady Sybilla moved her hand this way and that with the gesture of a blind man groping.
"Hush," she said, "I only said that he was well. And he is well. As I am already in the place of torment, I know that there is a heaven for those who die as William Douglas died."
Sholto's cry rang sudden, loud, despairing.
"Dead—dead—Earl William dead—my master dead!"
He dropped the palfrey's rein, which till now he had held. His sword fell unheeded on the turf, and he flung himself down in an agony of boyish grief. But from her white palfrey, sitting still where she was, the maiden watched the paroxysms of his sorrow. She was dry eyed now, and her face was like a mask cut in snow.
Then as suddenly recalling himself, Sholto leaped from the ground, snatched up his sword, and again passionately advanced upon the Lady Sybilla.
"You it was who betrayed him," he cried, pointing the blade at her breast; "answer if it were not so!"
"It is true I betrayed him," she answered calmly.
"You whom he loved—God knows how unworthily—"
"God knows," she said simply and calmly.