But this
precaution, which did indeed impose on the innocent credulty of her
husband's sister and his daughter, failed to satisfy the countess
herself.
Fearful that Helen might communicate her flight to Wallace, and so
excite his suspicion of her not being far from him, from the moment of
her joining him at Linlithgow she intercepted every letter from
Huntingtower: and when Bruce went to that castle, she continued the
practice with double vigilance, being jealous of what might be said of
Helen by this Sir Thomas de Longueville, in whom the master of her fate
seemed so unreservedly to confide. To this end, even after she left
the camp, all packets from Perthshire were conveyed to her by the spy
she had stationed near Wallace; while all which were sent from him to
Huntingtower were stopped by the treacherous seneschal, and thrown into
the flames. No letters, however, ever came from Helen; a few bore Lord
Ruthven's superscription, and all the rest were addressed by Sir Thomas
de Longueville to Wallace. She broke the seals of this correspondence,
but she looked in vain on their contents. Bruce and his friend, as
well as Ruthven, wrote in a cipher, and only one passage, which the
former had by chance written in the common character, could she ever
make out.
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