roaning or murmuring a few words, sometimes French,
sometimes Scotch.

Malcolm would have fallen on his knees by his side, and striven to win a
word or a look, but James forcibly withheld him. 'If you roused him into
loud ravings in our own tongue, all hope of saving him would be gone,' he
said.

'Shall we? Oh, can we?' cried Malcolm, catching at the mere word _hope_.

'I only know,' said the King, 'that unless we do so by Harry's good-will,
I will never serve under him again.'

'And if he persists in his cruelty?'

'Then must some means be found of carrying Drummond into Corbeil. It
will go hard with me but he shall be saved, Malcolm. But this whole army
is against a Scot; and Harry's eye is everywhere, and his fierceness
unrelenting. Malcolm, this _is_ bondage! May God and St. Andrew aid
us!'

When the King came to saying that, it was plain he deemed the case past
all other aid.

Malcolm's misery was great. The very sight of Patrick had made a mighty
revulsion in his feelings. The almost forgotten associations of
Glenuskie were revived; the forms of his guardian and of Lily came before
him, as he heard familiar names and phrases in the dear home accent fall
from the fevered lips. Coldingham rose up before him, and St. Abbs, with
Lily watching on the rocks for tidings of her knight--her knight, to whom
her brother had once promised to resign all his lands and honours, but
who now lay captured by plunderers, among whom that brother made one, and
in peril of a shameful death. Oh, far better die in his stead, than
return to Lily with tidings such as these!

Was this retribution for his broken purpose, and for having fallen away,
not merely into secular life, but into sins that stood between him and
religious rites? The King had called St. Andrew to aid! Must a proof of
repentance and change be given, ere that aid would come? Should he vow
himself again to the cloister, yield up the hope of Esclairmonde, and
devote himself for Patrick's sake? Could he ever be happy with Patrick
dead, and Esclairmonde driven and harassed into being his wife? Were it
not better to vow at once, that so his cousin were spared he would return
to his old purposes?

Almost had he uttered the vow, when, tugging hard at his heart, came the
vision of Esclairmonde's loveliness, and he felt it beyond his strength
to resign her voluntarily; besides, how Madame of Hainault and
Monseigneur de Therouenne would deride his uncertai