A smile, a pleased, a tranquil, tender smile, played over his lips as he said, "My own sweet children, I dare think of you now! Yesterday it was with such painful regret that the image of your innocent endearments rose before my mind, that I strove to banish you from my thoughts. My gallant, stout boy! my pretty Annie!" and a silent but sweet tear stole down his manly cheek. "And yet, my love, are we not almost presumptuous in looking forward thus confidently? Though no longer within a prison's walls, we must not deem ourselves too secure----" As he spoke, one loud, deep, sonorous toll of a bell was heard. Lady Nithsdale started. The colour, which the joyous picture she had drawn had summoned to her cheeks, gave way to a ghastly paleness. Lord Nithsdale did not finish the broken sentence: both sat in mute horror. Several moments elapsed; they heard no more. They began to fancy some accidental sound had startled them, when again the clear, deep sound struck on their ears--their hearts! She looked upon him with a fearful inquiring glance. "It must be so," he said; "this is the very hour!" He clasped his hands firmly together; and, dropping his head, he pressed them against his bosom. "My friends, my noble, my true-hearted friends!" he ejaculated in a low and smothered voice. "O God! and is it over?" she exclaimed, and she wound her arms around him; she clung to him with desperate energy; she pressed him closely to her, while she gazed wildly at the closed door, as if she every moment expected to see it burst open, and the ministers of the law rush in to bereave her of the loved being she had rescued. "They shall not tear thee from me! No, no! I feel this woman's arm could hold thee with so firm a grasp, that no earthly power could sever us. They shall not, they cannot wrest thee from these arms!" Again the awful toll of the minute-bell rung upon their ears! "Does it mean all is over?" she again slowly whispered in trembling horror. "No, no! not so! they are even now on their way to the scaffold," he said. "He breathes yet! my friend, my noble Derwentwater yet breathes this vital air! The healthful blood still flows through his veins! That gallant heart still throbs in its mortal clothing! He is yet alive; and on this vast globe there does not beat a heart more gallant,--a spirit more undaunted dwells not on this earth!" Again that toll struck on their hearts,--that toll for which they listened, till they almost fancied each must have been the last; when, no! the next awful sound struck their very frame, jarred on their every nerve, even more painfully than that which preceded it. They were half tempted to stop their ears to exclude the torturing clang, but a power which they could not resist compelled them to listen with redoubled intensity.