"By this time they must have reached Tower Hill!" he murmured. If he had seen the fearful expression of her countenance while he thus pictured what would have been, what still might be, his fate, he would in pity have been silent; but his thoughts were at that moment all upon his friends, his companions, his fellow-prisoners. Though he pressed her to his heart, he looked not upon her, and was still absorbed by the scene which he knew was enacting. "Hush! all is silent! the bell has ceased!" No: it came again! its brazen clang again sounded. They still listened in breathless silence! At length it really ceased. "What means this stillness?" she faintly asked. "It is even now," he replied, in a smothered tone, "they must have reached the spot!" He pressed his hand upon his eyes: "My friends! my friends!--my dear, my noble friends!--I should not have abandoned ye; I should be there to share your fate; I ought to be with ye now!" he exclaimed in passion. "My husband! my life! my love?" she softly whispered, in an appealing, a deprecating tone. "Oh! no, no! I did not mean to say so! This is my home! here is my resting-place!" and his head dropped upon her shoulder. Minutes elapsed: neither could keep count of time; it might be moments, it might be hours! Again the awful, the horrible bell resounded; it seemed to crack his heart-strings. He started up; he shook her from him: he paced the room with hasty strides. "It is all over!" he exclaimed,--"it is consummated! They are now bloody corpses! head-less trunks!" She seized him by the arm: "Hush, hush; in mercy hush! speak not with such ungoverned earnestness. Did not Amy forbid us to stir for our lives?--did she not bid us converse in subdued tones?--did she not bid us avoid every movement that might betray that this apartment was occupied? Are there not other lodgers in the house? If you do not value life yourself, take pity on me. Spare me! oh, spare me the horrors you have just brought so vividly before me! Be still, I implore, I command,--by all I have done, all I have ventured, all I have endured!" and she dragged him to the wretched bed on which they had been seated, and which was the only article of furniture the chamber contained. He unresistingly yielded to her gentle force, and re-seated himself. The dreadful certainty that the fate of his companions in misfortune was sealed completely dispelled the gleam of secure happiness which had shone through the hearts of both. Lady Nithsdale thought on the Countess of Derwentwater; on the Lady Kenmure; and while she closely clung to her husband's arm, to assure herself in very truth that he was safe, and to prevent his making any movement which might betray him, she pictured to herself the unavailing agonies of the other ladies, till her very brain went round!