That a terrible vengeance would be planned by the Douglases and their adherents for that _black dinner_,--as it was named,--he felt assured; for all who hated the regent or dreaded the chancellor had for years found security in the numerous strongholds of the slaughtered earl, and had there bid defiance alike to king, law, and parliament. All the lawless moss-troopers; all broken, idle, and mischievous persons, professed themselves vassals of this powerful house, which was rapidly aiming at the erection of a separate and independent principality in the southern and most fertile district of Scotland. By the stern chancellor's wisdom, and merciless decree, the headsman's axe had struck a fatal blow at this most daring and ambitious scheme: but what might the sequel be to public as well as private interests? And Murielle! She knew all the perils of the age in which she lived; the daily--yea, hourly dangers to which her lover as Captain of the King's Guard was exposed; she knew, too, how many interests were hostile to their union, and that their love seemed the hopeless passion of a romance or a harper's song; yet she had still continued to love, and trust, and hope, though vaguely, for some turn of the wheel of Fortune, as loving women always do in the hours of trouble and adversity; but of what avail would all this trust and hope be _now_? All these thoughts rushed like a flood through the mind of Gray, as he stood next morning beside the newly-heaped mound where the dead were buried. How was he to excuse to Murielle that he was present at the butchery of her nearest kinsmen? and, _why_ that he still adhered to those who so basely slew them under truce and tryst? A shadow fell across the large earthen mound. He looked up, and his eyes met those of the inflexible chancellor. "Good morrow, Sir Patrick!" said the latter, with a keen glance. "Art moralizing on the mutability of human things, or the vanity of human greatness?" "Nay; my mind was full of neither." "What then?" "I was but thinking that it was a foul deed, my lord; this slaughter of two helpless youths, amid the festivity of a royal banquet." "Foul!" reiterated the Chancellor, with a louring brow and flashing eyes. "As foul as if the heart of Judas planned it; a deed at which all Scotland, if not all Europe, will cry aloud," replied Gray, stoutly.