Lady Mar found her situation so strange, and her agitation so inexplicable, that feeling it impossible to remain longer without giving way to a burst of tears, she rose from her seat, and forcing a smile with her courtesy to the company, left the room. On gaining the upper apartment, she threw herself upon the nearest couch, and striking her breast, exclaimed: "What is this within me? How does my soul seem to pour itself out to this man! Oh! how does it extend itself, as if it would absorb his, even at my eyes! Only twelve hours--hardly twelve hours, have I seen this William Wallace, and yet my very being is now lost in his!" While thus speaking, she covered her face with her handkerchief, but no tears now started to be wiped away. The fire in her veins dried the source, and with burning blushes she rose from her seat. "Fatal, fatal hour! Why didst thou come here, too infatuating Wallace, to rob me of my peace? Oh! why did I ever look on that face?-or rather, blessed saints!" cried she, clasping her hands in wild passion, "why did I ever shackle this hand?-why did I ever render such a sacrifice necessary? Wallace is now free; had I been free? But wretch, wretch, wretch; I could tear out this betrayed heart! I could trample on that of the infatuated husband that made me such a slave!" She gasped for breath, and again seating herself, reclined her beating temples against the couch. She was now silent; but thoughts not less intense, not less fraught with self-reproach and anguish, occupied her mind. Should this god of her idolatry ever discover that it was her information which had sent Earl de Valence's men to surround him in the mountains; should he ever learn that at Bothwell she had betrayed the cause on which he had set his life, she felt that moment would be her last. For, now, to sate her eyes with gazing on him, to hear the sound of his voice, to receive his smiles, seemed to her a joy she could only surrender with her existence. What then was the prospect of so soon losing him, even to crown himself with honor, but to her a living death? TO defer his departure was all her study--all her hope; and fearful that his restless valor might urge him to accompany Murray in his intended convoy of Helen to the Tweed, she determined to persuade her nephew to set off without the knowledge of his general. She did not allow that it was the youthful beauty, and more lovely mind of her daughter-in-law, which she feared; even to herself she cloaked her alarm under the plausible excuse of care for the chieftain's safety. Composed by this mental arrangement, her disturbed features became smooth, and with even a sedate air she received her lord and his brave friends, when they soon after entered the chamber.