"Oh, Vipont! Vipont!" she sobbed, and buried her face in her hands; "my heart is sorely tempted to abandon thee--but in vain!" Then Redhall, lest he might say more to widen the gulf between them, and with lover-like indecision repenting even what he had said, retired abruptly, and left her bathed in tears, and with a bosom full of the most clamorous anxiety and alarm, not for herself, but for her mother and the earl. To know that the former was a captive in the castle of the Inch, and that she, her only daughter, was not beside her to soothe and console her grief and pride; that her brother, too, was separated from her only by a stone wall; and that they were both prisoners in the midst of a dense population--but a few feet from a busy street, where so many strong hands and stout hearts might easily be summoned to their rescue--prisoners in the hands of one so deep and stern in purpose, so relentless in his vengeance, as Redhall,--caused her the most complicated emotions of agony and dread. For the thousandth time she examined the bolted door, the tapestried walls, and the grated windows, for a means of escape, but found them all as before; and then, after once more failing by the offer of all her rings and brooches to overcome the inflexible integrity of Tib Trotter, hopeless and despairing, she knelt down to pray and to weep. "Come hither, Tib," said Redhall to this niece of his trusty henchman, as he retired; "the young lady, my kinswoman, is I fear, seriously indisposed; put this powder in her milk posset to-night; but on peril of thy life neither allow her to see or know aught of it." With a low curtsey, and a downcast glance of the deepest respect, Tib received the little packet, and Redhall hurried back to his writing chamber and his portfolios. CHAPTER XXIV. THE KNIFE. "Cunning is a crooked weapon; and nothing is more hurtful than when cunning men pass for wise."--BACON. The Earl of Ashkirk occupied an apartment immediately below that of his sister; but one which was certainly of a very different aspect and description. After their capture, it was not until daylight broke that he discovered he was only in the strong house of Redhall, scarcely a hundred yards from his own gate, and not (as he had first supposed) either in the towers of the castle or the Tolbooth of the city. In the scuffle preceding his capture he had been so severely handled, as to become insensible; thus, on sense returning, he found that, though the infamous gag (the thought of which made his fierce blood boil with wrath and shame) had been removed, as well as the cords which had secured his hands, his mouth had been severely cut by the iron tongue of the former, and his wrists wore swollen and livid by the merciless application of the latter.