"If you will return hither at the hour I have named," replied the man in black, "you shall see what will surprise you; for you must know that in this apartment lodges the Lady Ruperta, who was, not quite a year ago, the wife of Earl Lambert, of Scotland, which marriage cost him his life, and has placed her in danger of losing it every hour; for Claudio Rubicon, a gentleman of very good family in Scotland, whose great wealth and ancient lineage rendered him proud and overbearing, and he being also of a warm temperament, loved my mistress when she was a maiden; but she, whether she disliked him or not, at any rate, rejected him, and showed her disdain of his addresses by marrying the earl my master. This hasty act of hers seemed as if it was a proof of contempt and aversion to Rubicon, as if the fair Ruperta had not parents who fixed and directed her choice, and, added to which, the years of the husband chosen for her, were far better suited to her own; and it is no doubt desirable that this should be considered in a marriage, although it is good for the husband to have the advantage in point of age. Now Rubicon was a widower, and far from young, and he had a son of about twenty or one-and-twenty years old, a young man extremely amiable, and of a much better disposition than his father, indeed, had it been he who had offered himself, my master might be still alive, and my mistress happier. "It chanced then that my lady and her husband being at a country seat of his where they had gone to enjoy themselves together, one day, in a lonely spot, they suddenly met Rubicon, attended by a strong party of his servants. At the sight of my lady all the fury he had felt at the injury he conceived she had done him, was aroused, and, instead of love, hate and rage sprang up in his soul, and a desire to revenge himself on her; and as the revenge of a despised lover far surpasses the offence given, so Rubicon, enraged and desperate with jealousy and hate, drew his sword, and ran the earl my master through the body, crying, 'If this be cruelty, far greater has been that of thy wife to me, for her disdain has tortured me a hundred thousand times!' "I was present during this scene, these ears heard his words, and these eyes saw the blow given, and with these hands did I endeavour to close the wound. I heard the lamentations of my mistress which pierced the air. We returned to the spot afterwards to remove the body for burial, and by her command the head was cut off, and, in a few days, by dint of certain applications used, all the flesh was removed from the skull. She had a silver case made to hold it, and, placing her hand thereon, she made the following vow: but I forgot to mention that the cruel murderer, either from forgetfulness, or in his fury, or possibly from the hurry of mind he must have been in, left his sword sticking in my lord's body; and his blood even now looks fresh upon the blade. I was going to tell you that she pronounced these words:--