“My child—­my Alan!” she whispered, harrowing his very soul beneath that voice’s thrilling woe.  “Douglas, hast thou heard?—­yes, yes; I can read it in thine awe-struck face.  This, this is all I have left of him,” and she partly drew from her bosom the clustering ringlets he recognized at once; “yet, wherefore should I mourn him:  he is happy.  Bid his memory be honored among ye; and oh, tell the sovereign for whom he fell, better a death like this than treachery and shame.”

She had paused as fearing observation, but perceiving the attention of all more fixed on the glittering cavalcade than on herself, she placed one of those glossy curls in the young earl’s hand, and continued—­

“Give this to my poor Agnes, with her mother’s blessing, and bid her take comfort, bid her not weep and mourn for me.  A prison, even death is preferable now to life, for she is cared for.  I trust her to Sir Nigel’s love; I know that he will tend her as a brother till a happier hour makes her all his own.  Commend me to my sovereign, and tell him, might I choose my path again, despite its anguish, ’twould be that which I have trod.  And now farewell, young lord, I bless thee for this meeting.”

“Dominus vobiscum mea filia, et vale,” responded the supposed monk, in a loud voice, for he had only time to assure the countess by a look of deep sympathy of his willingness to execute her simplest wish, and hide the ringlet in his bosom, ere Hereford turned towards him, with a gaze of stern inquiry.  Ably concealing alike his emotion and the expression of his countenance, Douglas evaded discovery, and even obtained permission to follow the litter to the environs of the town.  He did so, but the countess addressed him not again; and it was with a heart-sinking despondency he had turned to the mountains, when the cavalcade disappeared from his view.  He retained his monkish garb till he entered the mountain district, where he fell in with his two companions, and they proceeded, as we have seen, to the quarters of their king.

A pause of horror followed his narrative, told more forcibly and briefly by the lips of Douglas than through the cooler medium of the historian’s pen.  Stunned, overwhelmed, as if incapable of movement or speech, though sense remained, Agnes stood insensible, even to the voice of Nigel, whose soothing accents strove to whisper peace; but when Douglas placed in her cold hand the raven curls she knew so well, when tenderly yet earnestly he repeated her mother’s words, the poor girl repeatedly pressed the hair to her parched lips, and laid it in her bosom; and then perceiving the sad and anxious face of her beloved, she passed her hand hurriedly over her brow, and burying her head on his breast, sense was preserved by an agony of tears.