“Nothing,” answered the young man, calmly.  “I need little more on earth, for neither my youth, my birth, nor what it pleaseth thee to term my gallantry, will save me from the sweeping axe of Edward.  I would beseech thee to let my death atone for all, and redeem my noble friends; but I ask it not, for I know in this thou hast no power; and yet, though I ask nothing now,” he added, after a brief pause, and in a lower voice, as to be heard only by Hereford, “ere we march to England I may have a boon to crave—­protection, liberty for a beloved one, whose fate as yet I know not.”  He spoke almost inarticulately, for again it seemed the horrid words and maniac laugh of Jean Roy resounded in his ears.  There was that in the look and manner of the English earl inviting confidence:  a moment the tortured young man longed to pour all into his ear, to conjure him to find Agnes, and give her to his arms; the next he refrained, for her words, “Ask not how I will contrive to abide by thee undiscovered by the foe,” suddenly flashed on his memory, with the conviction that if she were indeed still in life, and he acknowledged her his wife, Hereford would feel himself compelled to keep her under restraint, as he did Lady Seaton and the wives of other noble Scotsmen.  His lip trembled, but fortunately for the preservation of his composure, Hereford’s attention was called from him by the eager entrance of several other officers, who all crowded round him, alike in congratulation, and waiting his commands, and perceiving he was agitated, the earl turned from him with a courteous bow.  Eagerly he seized that moment to spring to the side of his sister, to whisper the impatient inquiry, “Agnes, where is Agnes?” To feel his heart a moment throb high, and then sink again by her reply, that she had not seen her since he had placed her in the arms of the seer; that in the fearful confusion which followed, she had looked for her in vain, examined all her accustomed haunts, but discovered no traces of her, save the silver tissue veil.  There was, however, some hope in that; Jean Roy, misled by the glittering article, and seeing it perchance in the hands of another, might have been deceived in her prey.  Nay, he welcomed the uncertainty of suspense; there was something so fearful, so horrible in the idea that his own faithful Agnes was among those blackened and mangled bodies, which Lancaster informed him had been discovered beneath the ruins, something so sickening, so revolting, he could not take advantage of the earl’s offer to examine them himself, though, Lancaster added, it would not be of much use, for he challenged their dearest friends to recognize them.  He could not believe such was her fate.  Dermid had not been seen since the fatal conclusion of their marriage; he knew his fidelity, his interest in both Agnes and himself, and he could not, he would not believe the maniac had decoyed her from his care.  But where was she?—­where, in such a moment, could he have conveyed her?—­what would be her final fate?—­how would she rejoin him? were questions ever thronging on his heart and brain, struggling with doubts, with the horrible suspicion still clinging to that shriek which had sounded as the ruins fell.  Darker and more forebodingly oppressive grew these conflicting thoughts, as day after day passed, and still she came not, nor were there any tidings of the seer.