It is fitting so loyal a patriot as thyself should look on a patriot's fate, and profit thereby." "Aye, learn how a patriot can die--how, when his life may no more benefit his country and his kin, he may serve them in his death," calmly and proudly she answered.

"It is well; perchance, when my turn cometh, I may thank thy master for the lesson now rudely forced upon me.

The hour will come when the blood that he now so unjustly sheds shall shriek aloud for vengeance.

On me let him work his will--I fear him not." "Be silent, minion! I listen not to thy foul treason," said the earl, hoarse with suppressed passion at the little effect his sovereign's mandate produced, when he had hoped to have enforced it midst sobs and tears; and she was silent, for her eye had caught one face amidst the crowd that fascinated its gaze, and sent back the blood, which had seemed to stagnate when the idea that it was indeed Nigel now about to suffer had been thus rudely thrust upon her--sent it with such sudden revulsion through its varied channels, that it was only with a desperate struggle she retained her outward calmness, and then she stood, to the eye of Berwick, proud, dignified, collected, seemingly so cold, that he doubted whether aught of feeling could remain, or marvelled if the mandate of Edward had indeed power to inflict aught of pain.

But within--oh, the veriest tyrant must have shuddered, could he have known the torture there; she saw, she recognized her child; she read naught but madness in that chiselled gaze; she saw at a glance there was no escaping from beholding, to the dreadful end, the fate of her beloved; before, behind, on every side, the crowds pressed round, yet from the slightly elevated position of the scaffold, failing to conceal it from her gaze.