His beautified spirit, with those of my uncles Bothwell and
Ruthven, will rejoice in such a peace, and I shall enjoy it to
felicity, in so sacred a participation. Surprised at her associating
the name of Lord Ruthven with those who had fallen, Wallace interrupted
her with the assurance of her uncle's safety. The Scottish chiefs
easily understood that De Valence had given her the opposite
intelligence, to impress her with an idea that she was friendless, and
so precipitate her into the determination of becoming his wife. But
she did not repeat to her brave auditors all the arguments he had used
to shake her impregnable heart--impregnable, because a principle kept
guard there, which neither flattery nor ambition could dispossess. He
had told her that the very day in which she would give him her hand,
King Edward would send him viceroy into Scotland, where she should
reign with all the power and magnificence of a queen. He was handsome,
accomplished, and adored her; but Helen could not love him whom she
could not esteem, for she knew he was libertine, base and cruel. That
he loved her affected her not; she could only be sensible to an
affection placed on worthy foundations; and he who trampled on all
virtues in his own actions, could not desire them when seen in her; he
therefore must love her for the fairness of her form alone; and to
place any value on such affection was to grasp the wind.
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