A battering-ram broke down the prison-door. There stood Wallace and his
men, their weapons and armour covered with blood. De Valence, evading
the clutch of Kirkpatrick, thrust his dagger into Wallace's side and
fled.

"It is nothing," said Wallace, as he staunched the wound with his scarf.

"So is your mercy rewarded," muttered the grim Kirkpatrick.

"So am I true to my duty," returned Wallace, "though De Valence is a
traitor to his."

The Countess of Mar looked for the first time upon Wallace's
countenance. He was the enemy of her kinsmen of the house of Cummin;
unknown to her husband, she had sought to betray him to one of these
kinsmen; and now, as this beautiful woman beheld the man she had tried
to injure, a sense of shame, accompanied by a strange fascination,
entered her bosom.

"How does my soul seem to pour itself out to this man!" she said to
herself. "Hardly have I seen this William Wallace, and yet my very being
is lost in his!"

Love mingled with ambition in her uneasy mind. Her husband was old and
wounded; his life would not be long. Wallace had the genius of a
conqueror. Might he not be proclaimed king of Scotland? She threw
herself assiduously into his company during the days that followed. At
last, with tears in eyes, she confessed her love, thinking, in her
folly, that she could move the heart of one who had consecrated himself
to the service of Scotland and the memory of Marion.

"Your husband, Lady Mar," he said with gentleness, "is my friend; had I
even a heart to give to women, not one sigh should arise in it to his
dishonour. But I am deaf to women, and the voice of love sounds like the
funeral knell of her who will never breathe it to me more."

He rose, and ere the countess could reply, a messenger entered with news
from Ayr. Eighteen Scottish chiefs had been treacherously put to death,
and others were imprisoned and awaiting execution. Wallace and his men
marched straight to the castle of Ayr, surprised it while the English
lords were feasting within, and set it afire. Those who escaped the
flames either fell by Scottish steel, or yielded themselves prisoners.

Castle and fortalice opened their gates before Wallace as he marched
from Ayr to Berwick; but at Berwick he encountered stout resistance from
a noble foeman, the Earl of Gloucester, who with his garrison yielded
only to starvation. Wallace, touched with their valour, permitted them
to march out with all the honours of war, an