“I have been mad,” said Roland, “unpardonably mad. But you, lovely Catherine—”
“I,” said Catherine, in the same tone of unusual gravity, “have too long suffered you to use such expressions towards me—I fear I can permit it no longer, and I blame myself for the pain it may give you.”
“And what can have happened so suddenly to change our relation to each other, or alter, with such sudden cruelty, your whole deportment to me?”
“I can hardly tell,” replied Catherine, “unless it is that the events of the day have impressed on my mind the necessity of our observing more distance to each other. A chance similar to that which betrayed to you the existence of my brother, may make known to Henry the terms you have used to me; and, alas! his whole conduct, as well as his deed, this day, makes me too justly apprehensive of the consequences.”
“Fear nothing for that, fair Catherine,” answered the page; “I am well able to protect myself against risks of that nature.”
“That is to say,” replied she, “that you would fight with my twin-brother to show your regard for his sister? I have heard the Queen say, in her sad hours, that men are, in love or in hate, the most selfish animals of creation; and your carelessness in this matter looks very like it. But be not so much abashed—you are no worse than others.”
“You do me injustice, Catherine,” replied the page, “I thought but of being threatened with a sword, and did not remember in whose hand your fancy had placed it. If your brother stood before me, with his drawn weapon in his hand, so like as he is to you in word, person, and favour, he might shed my life's blood ere I could find in my heart to resist him to his injury.”
“Alas!” said she, “it is not my brother alone. But you remember only the singular circumstances in which we have met in equality, and I may say in intimacy. You think not, that whenever I re-enter my father's house, there is a gulf between us you may not pass, but with peril of your life.—Your only known relative is of wild and singular habits, of a hostile and broken clan [Footnote: A broken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for their good behaviour—a clan of outlaws; And the Graemes of the Debateable Land were in that condition.]—the rest of your lineage unknown—forgive me that I speak what is the undeniable truth.”
“Love, my beautiful Catherine, despises genealogies,” answered Roland Graeme.
“Love may, but so will not the Lord Seyton,” rejoined the damsel.