Page:The Family Legend.pdf/145

ARGYLL.

Thou didst not see it then?

MACLEAN.

Alack! alack!

O would that I had seen——O woe is me!
Her pain—her agony was short to mine!

LORNE, (behind, impatiently).

Is this an answer, chieftain, to the question

Argyll hath plainly ask'd thee?—Wert thou present
When Helen died? didst thou behold her death?

MACLEAN.

O yes; indeed I caught your meaning lamely;

I meant—I thought—I know not certainly
The very time and moment of her death,
Although within my arms she breathed her last.

LORNE, (rushing forward eagerly.)

Now are we answered.

(Argyll, covering his face with his hands, throws himself back in his chair for some time without speaking.)