She remembered Murray's words: that he was sent to set her free, and that recollection reawakened every hope.

Sir William had placed Lord Mar in a post as dangerous as honorable.
Should the Southrons return in any force into Scotland, Stirling must be one of the first places they would attack.

The earl was brave, but his wounds had robbed him of much of his martial vigor.

Might she not then be indeed set free?
And might not Wallace, on such an event, mean to repay her for all those sighs he now sought to repress from ideas of a virtue which she could admire, but had not the courage to imitate?
These wicked meditations passed even at the side of her husband, and, with a view to further every wish of her intoxicated imagination, she determined to spare no exertion to secure the support of her own family, which, when agreeing in one point, was the most powerful of any in the kingdom.

Her father, the Earl of Strathearn, was now a misanthrope recluse in the Orkneys; she therefore did not calculate on his assistance, but she resolved on requesting Wallace to put the names of her cousins, Athol and Badenoch, into the exchange of prisoners, for by their means she expected to accomplish all she hoped.