love, the obedience thou didst never heed, nay, trampled on, hath
been transferred to one who glories in them both. She is in
safety--slay, torture as thou wilt, I tell thee no more." Fettered,
unarmed, firm, undauntedly erect, stood Nigel Bruce, gazing with curling
lip and flashing eyes upon his foe. The foam had gathered on the earl's
lip, his hand, clenching his sword, had trembled with passion as Nigel
spoke, He sought to suppress that rage, to remember a public execution
would revenge him infinitely more than a blow of his sword, but he had
been too long unused to control; lashed into ungovernable fury by the
demeanor of Nigel, even more than by his words, the sword flashed from
its scabbard, was raised, and fell--but not upon his foe, for the Earl
of Gloucester suddenly stood between them.

"Art thou mad, or tired of life, my Lord of Buchan?" he said. "Knowest
thou not thou art amenable to the law, an thou thus deprivest justice of
her victim? Shame, shame, my lord; I deemed thee not a midnight
murderer."

"Darest thou so speak to me?" replied Buchan, fiercely; "by every fiend
in hell, thou shalt answer this! Begone, and meddle not with that which
concerneth thee nothing."

"It doth concern me, proud earl," replied Gloucester, standing
immediately before Nigel, whose emotion at observing the page by whom he
was accompanied, though momentary, must otherwise have been observed.
"The person of the prisoner is sacred to the laws of his country, the
mandate of his sovereign; on thy life thou darest not injure him--thou
knowest that thou darest not. Do thou begone, ere I summon those who, at
the mere mention of assault on one condemned, will keep thee in ward
till thou canst wreak thy vengeance on naught but clay; begone, I say!"

"I will not," sullenly answered the earl, unwillingly conscious of the
truth of his words; "I will not, till he hath answered me. Once more,"
he added, turning to Nigel with a demoniac scowl, "where is she whom
thou hast dared to call thy wife? answer me, or as there is a hell
beneath us, the torture shall wring it from thee!"

"In safety, where thine arm shall never reach her," haughtily answered
the young nobleman. "Torture! what wilt thou torture--the senseless
clay? Hence--I defy thee! Death will protect me from thy lawless power;
death will set his seal upon me ere we meet again."

The earl muttered a deep and terrible oath, and then he strode away,
coming in such violent contact a