"He did, and he is here." Edwin then repeated to his mother the affectionate message of his father, and the particulars of his release. Perceiving how happily they were engaged, Murray, now with a flutter in his own bosom, rose from his knees, and requested the lieutenant to conduct him to Lady Helen Mar. His guide led the way by a winding staircase into a stone gallery, where letting Lord Andrew into a spacious apartment, divided in the midst by a vast screen of carved cedar-wood, he pointed to a curtained entrance. "In that chamber," said he, "lodges the Lady Helen." "Ah, my poor cousin," exclaimed Murray; "though she seems not to have tasted the hardships of her parents, she has shared their misery, I do not doubt." While he spoke, the lieutenant bowed in silence, and Murray entered alone. The chamber was magnificent, and illumined by a lamp which hung from the ceiling. He cautiously approached the bed, fearing too hastily to disturb her, and gently pulling aside the curtains, beheld vacancy. An exclamation of alarm had almost escaped him, when observing a half-open door at the other side of the apartment, he drew toward it, and there beheld his cousin, with her back to him, kneeling before a crucifix. She spoke not, but the fervor of her action manifested how earnestly she prayed. He moved behind her, but she heard him not; her whole soul was absorbed in the success of her petition; and at last raising her clasped hands in a paroxysm of emotion, she exclaimed,-"If that trumpet sounded the victory of the Scots, then, Power of Goodness! receive thy servant's thanks. But if De Warenne have conquered, where De Valence has failed; if all whom I love be lost to me here, take me then to thyself, and let my freed spirit fly to their embraces in heaven!" "Ay, and on earth too, thou blessed angel!" cried Murray, throwing himself toward her. She started from her knees, and with such a cry as the widow of Sarepta uttered when she embraced her son from the dead, Helen threw herself on the bosom of her cousin, and closed her eyes in a blissful swoon--for even while every outward sense seemed fled, the impression of joy played about her heart; and the animated throbbings of Murray's breast, while he pressed her in his arms, at last aroused her to recollection. Her glistening and uplifted eyes told all the happiness, all the gratitude of her soul. "My father? All are safe?" demanded she. "All, my best beloved!" answered Murray, forgetting in his powerful emotions of his heart, that what he felt, and what he uttered, were beyond even a cousin's limits: "My uncle, the countess, Lord and Lady Ruthven--all are safe." "And Sir William Wallace?" cried she; "you do not mention him. I hope no ill-" "He is conqueror here!" interrupted Murray. "He has subdued every obstacle between Berwick and Stirling; and he has sent me hither to set you and the rest of the dear prisoners free."