CHAPTER XXXV.
Stirling Citadel.
At noon next day Murray received a message from Wallace, desiring him to acquaint the Earl of Mar that he was coming to the citadel to offer the palace of Snawdoun to the ladies of Mar, and to request the earl to take charge of the illustrous prisoners he was bringing to the castle.
Each member of the family hastened to prepare for an interview which excited different expectations in each different breast.

Lady Mar, well satisfied that Helen and Wallace had never met, and clinging to the vague words of Murray, that he had sent to give her liberty, called forth every art of the tiringroom to embellish her still fine person.
Lady Ruthven, with the respectable eagerness of a chaste matron, in prospect of seeing the man who had so often been the preserver of her brother, and who had so lately delivered her husband from a loathsome dungeon, was the first who joined the earl in the great gallery.

Lady Mar soon after entered like Juno, in all her plumage of majesty and beauty.
But the trumpet of Wallace had sounded in the gates before the trembling Helen could leave her apartment.

It was the herald of his approach, and she sunk breathless into a seat.

She was now going to see for the first time the man for whose woes she had so often wept; the man who had incurred them all for objects dear to her.