'Isabel gazed after his retiring figure in silence and speechless sorrow; and then, crushed by the sudden shock of his apparent heedlessness, she exclaimed, that in France he had forgotten her, and murmuring the legend on her ring, she threw up her white hands wildly towards heaven--there was a gush of blood from her lips, and she expired in the arms of the Earl and her sisters before they could bear her in from the balcony. 'She was interred among her ancestors in the burial vault of the ducal house of Queensberry, and a plate on her coffin--a plate to which her sorrowing lover pressed his lips again and again--bore the simple legend-- 'The eye finds; The heart chooseth; The hand binds; But death looseth!' * and since then,' concluded Dundrennan, 'we have heard no more of our comrade, who, though at home in beautiful Ettrick forest, would, I doubt not, willingly be with us to-night; for the tower of Tushielaw, with the brawl of Rankleburn, and the sough of the old oaks that shade it, must be but a lonely place wherein to brood over the loss of a heart we have loved.' * A copper plate, bearing this inscription, was recently found in a grave in Inveresk churchyard. CHAPTER LXII. A MIDNIGHT MARCH. The evil fortune which had attended my comrade in his love affair affected my own spirit, and for several days after rejoining the Garde du Corps, I felt sad, lonely, and thoughtful. I was separated from Marie Louise, and though I could scarcely despair, what had I to give me hope? Yet a faint, a wild, and fantastic hope that did come at times, faded and grew fainter as day succeeded day. She seemed ever before me, vividly and distinctly as I had seen her last; for in this girl's manner, in the clear full expression of her eye and the melody of her voice, there were an indescribable fascination; while her conversational powers were so full of unstudied grace, that, I verily believe, no man could speak with her, without feeling himself insensibly charmed and lured, he knew not why, to love her. But of this enough; lest the reader may suspect me of being less a soldier than a puling sentimentalist. The recollection of Pappenheim was always sufficient to kindle my fury. At times, I had a gloomy desire to fall in battle; but not before I sent the thick-lipped Austrian lord to his last account, duly attended, if possible, by his friend De Bitche, as aide-de-camp; and these amiable desires seemed unexpectedly to be in a fair way of being gratified; for one evening the Marquis de Gordon, who had been overnight with the Duc de Lavalette, rode hurriedly to our quarters, and as he passed me at the door of my billet, where I was lounging and enjoying a pipe of tobacco. 'Now, Blane,' said he, 'your time for vengeance is at hand!' 'How, Marquis?'