But a few days of quiet at Alloa had recovered
her health from the shock it had received in the recent scenes, and she
proposed to her aunt to send some trusty messenger to inform the
imprisoned earl at Dumbarton of her happy refuge; and Lady Ruthven in
return had urged the probability that the messenger would be
intercepted, and so her asylum be discovered, saying, "Let it alone,
till this knight of yours, by performing his word, calls you to declare
his honorable deeds. Till then, Lord Mar, ignorant of your danger,
needs no assurance of your safety."
This casual reference to the knight had then made the tranquilized
heart of Helen renew its throbbings, and turning from her aunt with an
acquiescing reply, she retired to her own apartment to quell the
unusual and painful blushes she felt burning on her cheeks. Why she
should feel thus she could not account, "unless," said she to herself,
"I fear that my suspicion may be guessed at; and should my words or
looks betray the royal Bruce to any harm, that moment of undesigned
ingratitude would be the last of my life."
This explanation seemed ample to herself. And henceforth avoiding all
mention of her preserver in her conversations with Lady Ruthven, she
had confined the subject to her own breast; and thinking that she
thought of him more by her intention to speak of him less, she wondered
not that whenever she was alone his image immediately rose in her mind,
his voice seemed to sound in her ears, and even as the summer air
wafted its soft fragrance over her cheek, she would turn as if she felt
that breath which had so gently brushed her to repose.
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