In place of having been assassinated, as was generally believed, Sir John had been consigned to the dungeons of the Inquisition, in consequence of some unguarded expressions regarding the holy office which he had allowed to escape him when in Madrid; and in these dungeons had he lain, from the time he was first lost sight of, till within about six weeks of his appearance at Cassilis Castle. On his return home, he had learned, for the first time, of the marriage of the Lady Jane to the Earl of Cassilis; and this information having been accompanied by the intelligence that the latter was then in London, had determined him on the desperate enterprise in which he was now engaged. All this Sir John now communicated to the countess, and ended with proposing that she should fly with him. "No, no, Sir John," said the now weeping and dreadfully-agitated lady--"I cannot, I will not, do anything so unbecoming the daughter of the Earl of Haddington and the wife of Cassilis. However unwillingly I may have become the latter, I feel myself equally bound to consult his honour as my own, and do nothing that might sully either. Go then, Sir John," she continued; "oh, do depart from me--do leave me, and take with you an assurance of my continued and unabated"--she paused for a moment, and added--"esteem." But vain, vain were the good resolutions of the unfortunate countess--vain her determination not to take so hazardous, and perhaps it ought to be added, so infamous a step as that proposed by her desperate and unthinking lover. Love, almighty love, finally prevailed--all the countess's resolutions melted away before the energetic importunities of her lover, like snow beneath the midsummer sun; and the succeeding hour saw her mounted on the mettled steed which he had brought for the express purpose of carrying her away-- "So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung." This done, exactly as the poet has described it, the ill-starred pair commenced their flight, still attended, however, by the gipsy band which Sir John had employed to aid him in the abduction, and which he thought it necessary to keep around him till he should have got to a sufficient distance to be relieved from all apprehensions of pursuit. Leaving the guilty lovers to pursue their way, we shall return to Cassilis Castle, destined to be almost instantly afterwards the scene of another interesting and most ominous event. This was the unexpected return of the earl, who, with a large body of retainers, suddenly rode into the castle yard, within less than half-an-hour after the departure of the countess and her lover. Before he had yet got his foot to the ground, the earl was informed of what had occurred.