They remained together for an hour.

Wallace then came forth, and ordering his horse, with four followers, to be in readiness, said he meant to accompany his guest to Douglas Castle.

When he embraced his wife at parting, he told her that as Douglas was only a few miles distant, he should be at home again before the moon rose.
She passed the tedious hours of his absence with tranquillity, till the appointed signal of his return appeared from behind the summits of the opposite mountains.

So bright were its beams, that Marion did not need any other light to show her the stealing sands of her hour-glass, as they numbered the prolonged hours of her husband's stay.

She dismissed her servants to their rest; all, excepting Halbert, the gray-haired harper of Wallace; and he, like herself, was too unaccustomed to the absence of his master to find sleep visit his eyes while Ellerslie was bereft of its joy and its guard.
As the night advanced, Lady Wallace sat in the window of her bed-chamber, which looked toward the west.