"Impossible, my lady," cried Halbert, afraid that the melting heart of his master would consent: "you are safe here; and your flight would awaken suspicion in the English, that he had not gone far. Your ease and safety are dearer to him than his own life; and most likely by his care to preserve them, he would be traced, and so fall a ready sacrifice to the enemy." "It is true, my Marion; I could not preserve you in the places to which I go." "But the hardships you will endure!" cried she; "to sleep on the cold stones, with no covering but the sky, or the dripping vault of some dreary cave! I have not courage to abandon you alone to such cruel rigors." "Cease, my beloved!" interrupted he, "cease these groundless alarms. Neither rocks nor storms have any threats to me. It is only tender woman's cares that make man's body delicate. Before I was thine, my Marion, I have lain whole nights upon the mountain's brow, counting the wintery stars, as I impatiently awaited the hunter's horn that was to recall me to the chase in Glenfinlass. Alike to Wallace is the couch of down or the bed of heather; so, best-beloved of my heart, grieve not at hardships which were once my sport, and will now be my safety." "Then farewell! May good angels guard thee!" Her voice failed; she put his hand to her lips. "Courage, my Marion," said he; "remember that Wallace lives but in thee. Revive, be happy for my sake; and God, who putteth down the oppressor, will restore me to thine arms." She spoke not, but rising from his breast, clasped her hands together, and looked up with an expression of fervent prayer; then smiling through a shower of tears, she waved her hand to him to depart, and instantly disappeared into her own chamber. Wallace gazed at the closed door, with his soul in his eyes. To leave his Marion thus, to quit her who was the best part of his being, who seemed the very spring of the life now throbbing in his heart, was a contention with his fond, fond love, almost too powerful for his resolution. Here indeed his brave spirit gave way; and he would have followed her, and perhaps have determined to await his face at her side, had not Halbert, reading his mind in his countenance, taken him by the arm, and drawn him toward the portal.