"I am watched by that hateful imp her dwarf, and live in daily terror of her discovering all," continued the sobbing Yolande; "and you know what her views are concerning yourself. Go--go--John Comyn, for the love of God and Saint Mary, go!" "_John Comyn!_" muttered lady Gwendoleyne; "oh, wretch! that I had a dagger here to avenge this double perfidy!" A pause ensued. "To-morrow evening be it, then--at the Roman Peel," said a low voice. "When the moon is over Campsie Fells." "You will not forget, beloved Yolande." "Oh, no--no; and let that meeting be our last, for another day will change the face of everything," wept Yolande. Unable longer to restrain her fury, the white hand of Lady Comyn tore aside the arras, and she rushed into the apartment with all the aspect of an enraged Pythoness, while at the same moment the figure of a man vanished from the open window, and his steps were heard crashing through the bushes and trees without, as he retired hastily and in the dusk; but Gwendoleyne saw--or thought she saw--enough, to be convinced that the fugitive was no other than her husband! "Alas! madam," cried Yolande, sinking on her knees in an agony of terror, "you have discovered us." "At last--yes, at last!" exclaimed the fierce, exulting woman, in hoarse accents, as she savagely wreathed her slender fingers, which rage had endued with triple strength, in the golden hair of Yolande, and proceeded to drag her several times across the oak floor; "beggar! viper! outcast!--ha, ha, ha! thou shalt die now!" and she laughed as she tore out those beautiful tresses in handfuls, till the poor girl's shrieks died away, and she sank senseless at her feet. Then Gwendoleyne locked her up, and after tying the key of the chamber to her silver girdle, retired to her own apartment to still the fierce tumult that swelled her fiery heart, and to lay her plans of deeper and surer vengeance. Alas! they were but too soon formed and matured for pity or remorse to arrest them. The night passed away, and though she had alternate fits of tenderness and tears, with gusts of jealous rage and passion, the morning found her cold, calm, inexorable, and resolved to have a terrible retribution on the Red Comyn for this attempt to deceive her; and the arrival of a hasty message from him, stating that he was compelled to depart with a slender train on public business to the town of Dumfries, only made her smile the more bitterly, as she thought she saw the game her truant husband meant to play; but she resolved to checkmate him. "Dumfries, my Lord Chamberlain!" she said, with a scornful smile upon her lovely lip; "now what fool's errand takes him there?" "To hold a conference with Sir Robert Bruce, the young Earl of Annandale," replied the other, in a low voice; "the Bruces have some bold project now in hand." "A project."