"But he may be slain?" said the lord maliciously.
"No second choice would ever make me violate the solemn vow I pledged to him--that plight which I called on heaven to witness and angels to register."
Clermistonlee made no reply, but her fervour and her words stung him to the soul; her eyes sparkled and her usually pale cheek glowed; but he knew that it was for the love and by the recollection of another; his first thoughts were those of wrath; his second spleen and sorrow. He arose and stepped aside a little.
"Unfortunate that I am!" said he, with something of sadness and real love in his tone and manner. "By what witchcraft am I so hateful to her; but I must quit her presence for a time at least, or lose all hope of her favour for ever."
He walked to and fro, while Lilian, resigned again to tears, covered her face with her handkerchief.
"Beatrix," said Clermistonlee, in a fierce whisper to the shrinking woman, as she laid supper on the long dark oaken board, over which six tall waxen candles flared from a great iron candelabrum. "Beatrix Gilruth--hear me, old shrivel-skin! Hast never a love philtre about thee? Ere now I have known thee to my own cost use such things."
She gave a keen and fierce glance with her sunken eyes, and drawing him into one of the deeply bayed windows, pointed to where the square keep and round towers of the castle of Corstorphine threw a long dark shadow across the frozen lake that, like a mirror before its gates, lay shining in the cold light of the winter moon.
"And the aged sycamore beside the dovecot-tower?"
"Then remember how, nine years ago, the lord of that fair mansion perished under its shadow; and how his own good rapier, urged by the hand of the woman he had wronged, was driven--yea, to the very hilt--in his false and fickle heart. Often at mirk midnight have I seen the dead-light glimmering on his tomb in St. John's kirk, and illuminating the west window of the Forresters' aisle."
She gave him a glance so expressive of hatred, fear, contempt, and reproach that he almost quailed beneath it; and as she pointed to the veiled portrait, he turned abruptly away. Her words and allusion had evidently a deep effect on Clermistonlee. He was about to retire, but paused irresolutely, turned, and paused again. Then kissing Lilian's hand, he said in a gentle tone--