re
graven on my heart like fire, and are burning it to the core. You, my
wife, and whom I made my Lady Dundee, as if you had been a lowborn
country lass."

"You are unjust, my lord, shamefully and cruelly unjust. It was not a
pleasant thing for me to do, and I hated myself in the stooping to do
it, but there was no other way for it, since he dared not come in the
daylight, and I dared not go to him. Now I wish to God I had never
troubled myself and never lifted my little finger to accomplish this
thing for the cause, since spies have been going and coming between
Dudhope and the north. What I did, I did for you and King James, and
if I had succeeded ye would have praised me and said that a woman's
wiles had won a regiment of horse. But because I have failed ye fling
my poor effort in my face, and make me angry with myself that I ever
tried to serve you--you who stand here reproaching me for my
condescension."

"Well acted, my lady, and a very cunning tale. So it was to serve me
ye crept out at night disguised, and it was to win his heart for King
James that ye spoke so tenderly? I never expected the day would come
when John Graham of Claverhouse would call down blessings--aye, the
richest benediction of heaven--upon a Covenanter, but I pray God to
bless Captain Balfour with all things that he desires in this world
and in that which is to come. Because, though he knew not what he was
doing, and might have served his own cause better by letting things
run their course, he saved, at least in the eyes of the world, my
honor, and averted the public shame of a treacherous wanton."

As the words fell slowly and quietly from his lips, like drops of
vitriol, Jean's face reflected the rapid succession of emotions in her
heart. She was startled as one not grasping the meaning of his words:
she was horrified as their shameful charge emerged: she was stricken
to the heart as the man she had loved from out of all the world called
her by the vilest of all names a woman can hear. Then, being no gentle
and timid young wife who could be crushed by a savage and unexpected
blow and find her relief in a flood of tears, but a proud and
determined woman with the blood of two ancient houses in her veins,
after the briefest pause she struck back at Dundee, carrying herself
at her full height, throwing back her head with an attitude of scorn,
her face pale because intense feeling had called the blood back to the
heart, and her eyes blazing w