For she had been his ministrant angel in the prison. And her own heart being changed—vengeance in the drinking not seeming so sweet a cup as it had appeared in the mixing. She had also won the sullen mechanic heart of him, who, according to the law of the land, had been so long her husband. She had showed him the way to a certain sum of faith, penitence, and hope. Which, perchance, he snatched at, not so much for themselves, but as the best things which were left to him. ’James, won thou forth on thy way. Fear not! Thou shalt not be long alone,’ she said to him. And, staggering a little, he moved across the scaffold. He would have fallen but that Marjorie set his hand upon her shoulder and put her arm about him. So he came forward stumbling like a man in sore sickness, as doubtless he was. ’I am a sinful man,’ he said, so that some, at least, could hear him. ’Pray for me, good people. Keep your hands from blood, as I have not kept mine. And, Marjorie, though thou didst never love me, love me now, and bide with me till I die.’ ’Fear not,’ she said; ’I will stand beside thee, and not only here. I have a message that I shall right soon be called to journey with thee further, meeting thee somewhere by the way that thou must go.’ And calling him again ’sweet brother’ and ’James,’ she laid down his neck upon the block, and with one blow the headsman featly did his office. But Marjorie stood still and received the poor head in a decent napkin after the masked man had held it up. John Mure looked at her and at her son all the time, and an evil and contemptuous light shone in his eyes. ’Madam,’ he said, ’it had done no harm had you begun your care and attendance somewhat earlier. Ye might have made a decent preacher out of James. He was never muckle worth for aught else.’ Then Lennox came forward again with his paper. ’Now, John Mure,’ he said, ’we have done according to your desire. Ye will now, I doubt not, having seen the end and reward of iniquity in the person of your son, accept His Majesty’s so marvellous clemency, and be content to reveal all the matter.’ He came a little near to the old man, airily whisking his paper with his forefinger. John Mure waved him aside with one hand, and held his nose with the other. ’Pah! Get apart from me, civet cat!’ he cried. ’Think ye that I will have any dealings with you or with your dullard fool master, King Baggy-breeches. I saw that ye might, perchance, were I first turned to dead clay and lappered blood, chance to get something out of James there. I saw him look somewhat too eagerly on your reprieve, for much belated domesticity had turned him soft. So I played with you. And now, wot ye well, ye shall know nothing from me that your precious Solomon of asses cannot divine for himself!’ He took off his cloak of grey and lace collar, baring his neck for the dead stroke.