These sentiments only interested or concerned Sir Willoughby in so far as they told him that the fair maiden would not betray him. He mistook entirely the Scotch character generally; and he had not himself any of those high-minded qualities which could enable him to appreciate Margaret's. Betrayed, by her determination to do justice to her own standard of female duty, into an idea that the sacrifices she had thrown, and was again to throw, on the shrine of that duty which she had, in her fervid imagination, defied, were mere indications of a wish to oblige and conciliate him, Sir Willoughby thought he might safely go a step further, and endeavour to wring out of her the written promise of marriage he had so unguardedly given her. He began by using some more of the bland language by which he had originally beguiled her; but he had scarcely approached the subject on which her mind was fixed, when Margaret, with the perspicacity of her sex in these tender points, interrupted him; and, raising herself to the utmost extent of her height, while the fire flashed from her dark blue eye, said-- "If ye can tak' frae me the burden o' shame I hae carried for six moons under my broken heart, and restore to me my lost repute, aince pure as the snaw that the winds o' heaven hae driven o'er muir and mountain, and tear from my puir crazy brain the image I hae made an idol o', and on whose unholy alter I hae sacrificed my maiden virtue--and maybe that eternal life that hasna been promised to the trafficker in sin--then, Sir Willoughby, ye may ask me for that whilk stands to me in the place of ane haly covenant. It is the only solace left to bind up my broken spirit, and be a sign and a token to your bairn whom I hae yet to bear, that its puir mother, though doubtless guilty o' a great sin, was the victim o' a knight's broken troth, and maybe entitled to a drap o' mercy in her burning cup. Tell me, sir to keep frae the officers o' the law the secret that would bring ye to a shamefu' death, and I will part wi' it as sune as I will part wi' the written testimonial of what a merciful God, and the less merciful laws o' my countrie, may, peradventure, deal wi' as ane haly bond o' marriage." With these words, Margaret abruptly left the prison, and Sir Willoughby, concerned only for his liberation, denied access to his heart to the sentiments which reflected so much honour on the feelings of his victim, from whom he was entitled to expect nothing but revenge.