"
Lady Mar having recovered, re-entered the hall just as Wallace had
knelt down beside Helen. Maddened with the sight of the man on whom
her soul doted, in such a position before her rival, she advanced
hastily; and in a voice, which she vainly attempted to render composed
and gentle, sternly addressed her daughter-in-law: "Alarmed as I have
been by your apparent danger, I cannot but be uneasy at the attendant
circumstances; tell me, therefore, and satisfy this anxious company,
how it happened that you should be with the regent, when we supposed
you an invalid in your room, and were told he was gone to the citadel?"
A crimson blush overspread the cheeks of Helen at this question, for it
was delivered in a tone which insinuated that something more than
accident had occasioned their meeting, but as innocence dictated, she
answered, "I was in the chapel at prayers; Sir William Wallace entered
with the same design; and at the moment he desired me to mingle mine
with his, this assassin appeared and (she repeated) I saw his dagger
raised against our protector, and I saw no more."
There was not a heart present that did not give credence to this
account, but the polluted one of Lady Mar.
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