for it is for him and Scotland. Wilt
thou remember all this, sweet love? wilt thou speak to him these words?"

"Trust me I will, all, all that thou hast said; they are written here,"
placing her hand on her heart, "here, and they will not leave me, even
if all else fail."

"And thou wilt say to him, mine own, that Nigel besought his love, his
tenderness for thee," he continued, losing the enthusiasm of the patriot
in the tenderness of the husband; "tell him I look to him in part to
discharge the debt of love, of gratitude I owe to thee; to guard thee,
cherish thee as his own child. Alas! alas! I speak as if thou must reach
him, and yet, beset with danger, misery, as thou art, how may this be?"

"Fear not for me; it shall be, my husband. I will do thy bidding, I will
seek my king," she said, for when comfort failed for him, she sought to
give it. "Hast forgotten Dermid's words? He would be near me when I
needed him, and he will be, my beloved, I doubt him not."

"Could I but think so, could I but know that he would be near to shield
thee, oh, life's last care would be at an end, said Nigel, earnestly;
and then for some time that silence, more eloquent, more fraught with
feeling in such an hour than the most impassioned words, fell on them
both. When again he spoke, it was on a yet more holy theme; the
thoughts, the dreams of heaven, which from boyhood had been his, now
found vent in words and tones, which thrilled to the inmost spirit of
his listener, and lingered there, when all other sense had fled. He had
lived in an era of darkness. Revelation in its doctrines belonged to the
priests alone; faith and obedience demanded by the voice of man alone,
were all permitted to the laity, and spirits like Nigel's consequently
formed a natural religion, in which they lived and breathed, hallowing
the rites which they practised, giving scope and glory to their faith.
He pictured the world, on whose threshold he now stood, pictured it, not
with a bold unhallowed hand, but as the completion, the consummation of
all those dim whisperings of joy, and hope, and wisdom, which had
engrossed him below--the perfection of that beauty, that loveliness, in
the material and immaterial, he had yearned for in vain on earth.

"And this world of incomparable unshadowed loveliness awaits me," he
said, the superstition of the age mingling for the moment with thoughts
which seemed to mark him a century beyond his compeers; "purchased by
that sin