While he was yet passing through the streets, rumor told my aunt that the Scottish lord then leading to prison was her beloved brother.

She flew to me in agony to tell me the dreadful tidings.

I heard no more, saw no more, till, having rushed into the streets, and bursting through every obstacle of crowd and soldiers, I found myself clasped in my father's arms--in his shackled arms! What a moment was that! Where was Sir William Wallace in that hour?
Where the brave unknown knight, who had sworn to me to seek my father, and defend him with his life?
Both were absent, and he was in chains.
"My grief and distraction baffled the attempts of the guards to part us, and what became of me I know not until I found myself lying on a couch, attended by many women, and supported by my aunt.

When I had recovered to lamentation and to tears, my aunt told me I was in the apartments of the deputy warden.

He, with Cressingham, having gone out to meet the man they had so basely drawn into their toils, De Valence himself saw the struggles of paternal affection contending against the men who would have torn a senseless daughter from his arms, and yet, merciless man! he separated us, and sent me, with my aunt, a prisoner to his house.
"The next day a packet was put into my aunt's hands, containing a few precious lines from my father to me, also a letter from the countess to Lady Ruthven, full of your goodness to her and to my father, and narrating the cruel manner in which they had been ravished from the asylum in which you had placed them.