his son, but for the countess he knew that
there was no hope. The character, the sentiments of the earl had been
noticed by the Bruce when both were at the court of Edward, and he felt
and knew that any excuse to rid him of a wife whose virtues were
obnoxious to him would be acted on with joy. And here, perhaps, it may
be well to say a few words as to the real nature of King Robert's
sentiments towards Isabella of Buchan, as from the anxiety her detention
occasioned they may be so easily misunderstood.

We have performed our task but ill if our readers have imagined aught
but the most purely noble, most chivalric sentiments actuated the heart
of the king. Whatever might have been the nature of those sentiments in
earlier days, since his marriage with the daughter of the Earl of Mar
they had never entered his soul.

He had always believed the Lady Isabella's union with Lord John Comyn
was one of choice, not of necessity, nor did his visit to her after the
battle of Falkirk recall any former feeling. His mind had been under the
heavy pressure of that self-reproach which the impressive words of
Wallace had first awakened; the wretched state of his country, the
tyranny of Edward, occupied the mind of the man in which the emotions of
the boy had merged. He was, too, a husband and a father; and he was, as
his fond wife so trustingly believed, too nobly honorable to entertain
one thought to her dishonor. He looked on Isabella of Buchan as one
indeed demanding his utmost esteem and gratitude, his most faithful
friendship, and he secretly vowed that she should have it; but these
emotions took not their coloring from the past, they were excited simply
by her high-minded devotion to the cause of her country, her unshrinking
patriotism, her noble qualities, alike as a mother, subject, friend. He
felt but as one noble spirit ever feels for a kindred essence,
heightened perhaps by the dissimilarity of sex, but aught of love, even
in its faintest shadow, aught of dishonorable feelings towards her or
his own wife never entered his wildest dream. It was the recollection of
her unwavering loyalty, of the supporting kindness she had ever shown
his queen, which occasioned his bitter sorrow at her detention by the
foe; it was the dread that the cruel wrath of Edward would indeed
condemn her to death for the active part she had taken in his
coronation; the conviction, so agonizing to a mind like his, that he had
no power to rescue and aveng