CHAPTER XXXIX.
Stirling Castle and Council Hall.
The countess' chivalric tribute from the window gave Wallace reason to anticipate her company in his visit to Lady Ruthven; and on finding the room vacant, he dispatched Edwin for his mother, that he might not be distressed by the unchecked advances of a woman whom, as the wife of Lord Mar, he was obliged to see, and whose weakness he pitied, as she belonged to a sex for which, in consideration of the felicity once bestowed on him by woman, he felt a peculiar tenderness.

Respect the countess he could not; nor, indeed, could he feel any gratitude for a preference which seemed to him to have no foundations in the only true basis of love--the virtues of the object.

For, as she acted against every moral law, against his declared sentiments, it was evident that she placed little value on his esteem; and therefore he despised, while he pitied, a human creature ungovernably yielding herself to the sway of her passions.
In the midst of thoughts so little to her advantage, Lady Mar entered the room.

Wallace turned to meet her; while she, hastening toward him, and dropping on one knee, exclaimed, "Let me be the first woman in Scotland to acknowledge its king!" Wallace put forth both his hands to raise her; and smiling, replied, "Lady Mar, you would do me an honor I can never claim." "How ?" cried she, starting up.

"What, then, was that cry I heard?
Did they not call you 'prince,' and 'sovereign ?' Did not my Lord Buchan-" Confused, disappointed, overpowered, she left the sentence unfinished, sunk on a seat, and burst into tears.