For, now, to sate her eyes with gazing on him, to hear the sound of his voice, to receive his smiles, seemed to her a joy she could only surrender with her existence.

What then was the prospect of so soon losing him, even to crown himself with honor, but to her a living death?
TO defer his departure was all her study--all her hope; and fearful that his restless valor might urge him to accompany Murray in his intended convoy of Helen to the Tweed, she determined to persuade her nephew to set off without the knowledge of his general.

She did not allow that it was the youthful beauty, and more lovely mind of her daughter-in-law, which she feared; even to herself she cloaked her alarm under the plausible excuse of care for the chieftain's safety.
Composed by this mental arrangement, her disturbed features became smooth, and with even a sedate air she received her lord and his brave friends, when they soon after entered the chamber.
But the object of her wishes did not appear.

Wallace had taken Lord Lennox to view the dispositions of the fortress.

Ill satisfied as she was with his prolonged absence, she did not fail to turn it to advantage; and while her lord and his friends were examining a draft of Scotland (which Wallace had sketched after she left the banqueting-room), she took Lord Andrew aside, to converse with him on the subject now nearest to her heart.
"It certainly belongs to me alone, her kinsman and friend, to protect Helen to the Tweed, if there she must go," returned Murray; "but, my good lady, I cannot comprehend why I am to lead my fair cousin such a pilgrimage.