Some words caught by a curious listener, passing between the page and minstrel, and eagerly reported to him, convinced him it was Robert Bruce they sought, and urged him to continue the search with threefold vigor.
Slowly and sadly meanwhile had the hours of their weary pilgrimage passed for the poor wanderers, and little did they imagine, as they threaded the most intricate paths of the borders of Scotland, that they were objects of persecution and pursuit.

Though the bodily strength of Agnes had well-nigh waned, though the burning cheek and wandering, too brightly flashing eye denoted how fearfully did fever rage internally, she would not pause save when absolutely compelled.

She could neither sleep nor eat: her only cry was, "To the king--bring me but to King Robert while I may yet speak!" her only consciousness, that she had a mission to perform, that she was intrusted with a message from the dead; all else was a void, dark, shapeless, in which thought framed no image; mind, not a wish.

Insensibility it was not, alas! no, that void was woe, all woe, which folded up heart and brain as with a cloak of fire, scorching up thought, memory, hope--all that could recall the past, vivify the present, or vision forth the future.

She breathed indeed and spoke, and clung to that aged man with all the clinging helplessness of her sex, but scarce could she be said to live; all that was real of life had twined round her husband's soul, and with it fled.
The old man felt not his advanced age, the consciousness of the many dangers hovering on their way; his whole thought was for her, to bring her to the soothing care and protection of the king, and then he cared not how soon his sand run out.