Take courage, I will go with you myself--you cannot
know the trick of the spring, and the chest will be too heavy for
you."
"No fear, no fear," answered Lord Glenvarloch, ashamed of the
construction she put upon a momentary hesitation, arising from a
dislike to look upon what is horrible, often connected with those
high-wrought minds which are the last to fear what is merely
dangerous--"I will do your errand as you desire; but for you, you must
not--cannot go yonder."
"I can--I will," she said. "I am composed. You shall see that I am
so." She took from the table a piece of unfinished sewing-work, and,
with steadiness and composure, passed a silken thread into the eye of
a fine needle.--"Could I have done that," she said, with a smile yet
more ghastly than her previous look of fixed despair, "had not my
heart and hand been both steady?"
She then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel's chamber, and
proceeded through the secret passage with the same haste, as if she
had feared her resolution might have failed her ere her purpose was
executed. At the bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before
entering the fatal apartment, then hurried through with a rapid step
to the sleeping chamber beyond, followed closely by Lord Glenvarloch,
whose reluctance to approach the scene of butchery was altogether lost
in the anxiety which he felt on account of the survivor of the
tragedy.
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