"This is the very selfishness of grief. Dost think thai thou and Roland Vipont are the only two unhappy persons in the world?" The night was far advanced before Father St. Bernard left her; and before that time, his conversation had proved so soothing, that in less than an hour after he was gone, she committed her aching head to the pillow of the hard palliasse, which we have before described as being in a stone recess of the apartment, and sank into a deep, but quiet slumber. CHAPTER XLIV. DAVID'S TOWER--THE LOVER. "I kist with ane sigh the ringlet fair, That I shred frae my Marie's golden hair, And I thought that I never would see her mair. And when I try it to rest on my bed, The visions of night surrounded my head. But had I the wings of a dove to flee, They had nae parted my Marie and me." HENRY SCOUGALL, 1674. In another chamber of that vast bastille-house, and at the north-west corner thereof, which overhung the hollow where the church of St. Cuthbert lay, and the marsh that bounded the western end of the loch, sat Roland Vipont. The furniture and appurtenances of his apartment, without being very magnificent, were certainly better by many degrees than those afforded to his unhappy betrothed; but then it must be remembered that she was accused of sorcery, while he had merely committed high treason; and like hamesucken, or rising in arms, high treason was but a trivial action among the Scots of 1537. He was not allowed to visit Jane Seton; the chamber to which the warrant of Redhall had consigned him was one of the strongest in the fortress; and Sir James Riddel was answerable for his body, dead or alive, when demanded, under a penalty of ten thousand merks. Deprived of everything in the shape of weapons, even to his spurs, the lover sat with his arms folded on his breast, his chin (which exhibited an untrimmed beard) resting on his breast, his brows knit, and his eyes full of fire, revolving, as he had been for the last two days and a sleepless night, and re-revolving in anger and grief, a myriad of futile projects. "Gloomy as death, and desolate as hell," his thoughts were too impetuous and incoherent to take any permanent or useful form; but when his eyes rested on the enormous iron grating which secured his window, or endeavoured to fathom the tremendous abyss that yawned below--that abyss where the loch was rolling, every hope died within him, and he became sick; while the recollection made him become frantic, that, though he remained inert, secured and shut up within a few feet of him there breathed, suffered, and wept one whom he loved to adoration.