"Away from me further; for now I see thou art tainted with the cursed heresies of Calvin. Fatality! This is not the Catholic doctrine thy pious mother, Agnes of Sinclair, instilled into thy mind. Now I no longer need to marvel at thy duplicity. Thou who art false to thy God, may well be false to me; or art thou growing mad, too? Away to Anna, and leave me!" "Anna?" "Yes, Anna—’tis the name thou hast often muttered in thy sleep, when, with a heart full of love, I lay waking and watching by thy side, and these evil dreams were my meed. Hence to thy Norwegian!" "By St. Paul! this fellow, Konrad, hath been with thee! Ah, villain and traitor! beware how thou comest again within the reach of Bothwell’s dagger. Ho, Hob of Ormiston!—John of Bolton!—Calder!—Paris!—ho there! What a blockhead, what a jack-a-lent I have been!" The page appeared, and too frightened to remember his fee now, trembled in every limb at the domestic storm he had been partly the means of raising. "Has any one had access to the Countess?" asked the Earl, with a terrible frown. "None—none, my lord, that I know aught of." "French Paris, thou art a subtle little villain, and hadst thou not been gifted to me, like a marmozet, by the Queen, I would have cracked thy head, as thy likeness would a nut, to obtain the truth! Have the lairds of Ormiston or Bolton returned yet?" "This moment only, my lord. They are in the hall, and in their armour yet." "Let their stout jackmen hie to horse again, and bid them look well to girth and spur-leather; so, while I arm me, boy, send the knights hither." While Bothwell hurriedly buckled on a suit of armour that was lying near—for, as we said elsewhere, no man could with safety venture a yard from his own door unarmed—the Countess lay on the crimson settle, with her face covered by her hands, over which her long black hair was flowing in disorder. The clank of armed heels and steel scabbards in the antechamber, heralded the approach of the knights, and their mail flashed as the heavy arras was drawn aside, and they stood before the Earl. "The Norwegian hath been here!" whispered the latter to Ormiston. "How—who?" "Konrad of Saltzberg—thou rememberest him," he added aloud; "and he hath bewitched the Countess—a French sorcerer, Bolton, anent whom I will tell thee another time. Horse and spear! Thou, Ormiston, and I, must ride, scour the woods, and slay without reservation or remede if we find him. Nay, that were too cruel, perhaps; let us capture him, at all events. Tell your people, sirs, he is a tall fellow, with a long sword, a corselet, breeches and hosen of sable sarcenet. Twenty unicorns to the finder and capturer!"