"Bombie!" he reiterated, turning ghastly pale; "what leads you to suppose I ever committed a crime so frightful? Speak! But this is the wordy anger of a woman. You talk of an affair which happened eleven years ago, when you must have been but little more than a child. Lady, these words are rash and unadvised. Oh! I implore thee to beware of exciting in my heart the hatred of which I spoke, and of which I feel it capable." "Then I will repeat them a thousand and a thousand times, thou murderer of the brave Sir Thomas M'Clellan, my father's long-loved friend. I need care little for thy _hatred_, when thy mad love costs me so dear." "My hatred--beware, I implore thee once again--beware of it!" Lady Seton laughed; and a gloomy expression gathered in the dark solemn eyes of Redhall. "Think, dear lady--think," said he, "of the ruin that hangs over thee and thy house." "Do thou rather reflect on that, and remember that, were I to wed thee, for ever wouldst thou lose the favour of James, the cardinal, and their obsequious parliament; destroying thyself without lessening one iota the thousand pitiless severities to which the knights and barons of our faction are subjected." "Nay, lady, nay; I who have done, can _undo_. Many of those acts of proscription and severity were enacted by my advice and by my influence." "Another incentive to abhor thee." "But I can restore the banished to their homes,--the dishonoured to honour--the unhappy to happiness--the ruined and despairing to wealth and affluence; and to do all this by a word lies with thee alone." "St. Mary! I know not whether to weep with vexation or laugh at thee with scorn," said Jane, in great distress and perplexity, for she could not but acknowledge mentally that he spoke the truth. "Oh, Vipont! Vipont!" she added, in a low voice, "assuredly thou hast abandoned me." Another wild gleam passed over the eyes of Redhall. "Rash woman, how thou bravest me! if thy heart, insensible as it is, has neither love for me, nor pity for the knights and nobles of thy race, surely at least it will tremble for thyself! Behold this warrant," he continued, drawing a parchment from his bosom; "from this house, Jane Seton, thou canst only pass to the castle of Edinburgh. Here are accusations of treason; of conspiring with the English; of resetting rebels; and worse, oh! worse a thousand times than all--sorcery, and compassing, by spell and charm, the life of Queen Magdalene." He paused, and his lowering countenance assumed a diabolical expression; for his stormy passions were wavering (as he had said) between excess of love and excess of hate.