“Her father is not alive. Wherefore do you ask me, child?”

The unnatural flicker of hope rose again.

“Where did he die, and how? I beseech you to tell me, Mrs. Catherine!”

“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, gravely; “for what purpose do you seek to know? Wherefore do you question me so?”

“Where did he die, and when, and how?” repeated Anne.—”Answer me, Mrs. Catherine—do not hesitate—I am prepared.”

Mrs. Catherine paused long before she answered.

“The place was a country place—far south from this; the time was seventeen years ago; the way was—” Mrs. Catherine paused again. “To what purpose is this questioning, child? It is a matter that concerns you not.”

“The way was—?” repeated Anne, clasping her hand eagerly.

“The way was—he was killed,” said Mrs. Catherine, in abrupt haste. “Shot, as men shoot beasts. Anne Ross, I brought the bairn Alison to my house, because she was an innocent bairn that I wanted to do a kindness to, and not because of her parentage.”

Anne heard the words, but did not discern their meaning, and sat, in the blind, fainting sickness that possessed her, repeating them to herself, unconsciously.

“Child, child!” said Mrs. Catherine, in alarm. “What ails you? What have you heard? I am meaning, why have you come to me with such a question?”

“One other—only one,” said Anne, recollecting herself. “Mrs. Catherine, who was it—who was the murderer?”

Mrs. Catherine made an appealing motion with her hand, and did not answer.

But Anne was perfectly self-possessed again.

“Was it Norman?”

Mrs. Catherine did not speak; it was not necessary. The answer was far too legibly written in the long, steadfast look of grief and sympathy which she fixed upon her companion’s face.

And so they sat in silence for some minutes, too deeply moved and engrossed for words. At length Anne started up.

“That is all,” she said, hurriedly. “I must go now. I have much to do.”

Mrs. Catherine rose also, took her hand, and led her back to her seat.

Anne sat down again, mechanically.

“Child,” said Mrs. Catherine; “I have never spoken Norman’s name in your hearing, nor suffered it to be spoken. Who has told you a terrible story, which was buried in grief and forgetfulness long ago, when the unhappy lad found his grave under the sea? It is not known in the countryside, for the deed was done far from here, and your father hung back, and took no note, outwardly, of the miserable boy’s fate. He was right maybe. I would not have done the like—but that is little matter. Who told you?”

“Found his grave under the sea!” murmured Anne, unconsciously.

“What say ye, child?”

“It was Mrs. Ross,” said Anne, “when Miss Aytoun came first to the Tower, she told me that she feared this was his daughter. Oh! Mrs. Catherine, why did you not keep her separate from us? If we had not been brought so much together, this could not have happened.”

“Child,” said Mrs. Catherine, “there is something on your mind yet, which is not known to me; the story is a woeful story, dark enough to cause sore grief; but it is over and past, and there is some living dread upon you. What has happened?”

Anne looked up—she could not find words to communicate her “living dread”—she only murmured “Lewis.”

Mrs. Catherine started. “Lewis? Child what is it ye mean? No that there is anything—No, no, what makes me fear that—there can be no liking between the two.”

“There is, there is,” said Anne.

Mrs. Catherine rose, and walked through the room uneasily.

“It must be put to an end—immediate—without delay. I brought the bairn here to do her a kindness, no to give her a sore heart. Child, Lewis must not enter my house again till Alison Aytoun is home. She is but a bairn—it can have gone no further than the slight liking of a boy and a girl. Where were my eyes that I did not see the peril? Child, it must end this very day—better the pang of a sudden parting—better that each of them should think they were slighted by the other, than that it should ever come to an explanation between them, and then to the rendering of reasons—it must go no further.”

“It is too late,” said Anne; “there has already been an explanation between them. Mrs. Catherine, they are engaged.”

Mrs. Catherine paced up and down the small apartment with quick steps.

Anne did not know how to proceed: she could not betray Norman’s secret even to Mrs. Catherine.

“I will tell Lewis,” she said, “and perhaps, Mrs. Catherine—I do not know what is best to be done with poor Alice, so happy and young as she is—perhaps you will tell her—not all—but something to excuse Lewis.”

Mrs. Catherine shook her head.

“It will not do. It will not do. If I excuse Lewis, she will think it is but some passing thing that awhile will wear away.—No, child, no, if the bairn hears anything, she must hear all.”

“I will tell Lewis,” said Anne; “but I must first learn the whole of this dreadful story more perfectly. I thought of going to old Esther Fleming: she was Norman’s nurse, Mrs. Catherine—is she likely to know of this?”

“I mind much of it myself,” said Mrs. Catherine, “but you will get it better from Esther Fleming than from any other mortal. I have been taken up with many diverse things, but Norman and her own son were year’s bairns, and Norman was the light of Esther Fleming’s eyes. Your father made no endeavor to help the miserable young man, child. I know what you would say—there was no time—and it is true—for the deed had not been two days done, when he was on the sea—be thankful, child, that he perished in the sea and did not die a shameful death.”

Anne trembled—the consciousness of her secret overpowering her as if it had been guilt. Alas! over the head of the murderer the shameful death impended still.

“Did the family know?” she asked, her mind becoming strangely familiar with the subject: “could they know of Norman’s relationship to Lewis?”

“No,” said Mrs. Catherine. “When Arthur Aytoun died, his wife was a young thing, feeble in her health, and oppressed with many troubles; for I have heard that he was far from a good man. James Aytoun was but a bairn then, and Alison was not born; besides that, they were strangers in that countryside, as well as Norman—being from the south—and would know little of him but his name. Mrs. Aytoun is a woman of a chastened spirit, child; she knows the unhappy lad has answered for his guilt langsyne before his Maker; and think not that she will keep his name in the mother’s heart of her, in any dream of vengeance.”

Anne could not answer: her secret lay upon her like a cloud, weighing her down to the very earth.

Anne assented silently.

“And you will have a harder battle with the youth,” said Mrs. Catherine. “Child, there are bairns in this generation that would fain inherit the rights and possessions of their fathers, without the ills and the wrongs. Take heed of Lewis, lest he endeavor to hold this black deed lightly. I will not have it. The blood that a Ross spilt must never be joined in near kindred to another Ross. There is a deadly bar between the houses. Forgiveness there may be, full and free—I doubt it not—but union never. Mind, there can be no softening—no forgetting. The spirit that was sent to its account in violence and haste, by Norman’s hand, would rise to bar that ill-trysted betrothal. It must end.”

Anne rose.

“I will go,” she said. “I parted from Lewis last night in anger, because I had no kind word to say to Alice when he bade me be her sister. I must hasten now to learn these terrible details more accurately. Lewis might refuse to believe a story which came so suddenly upon him, and came for such a purpose, if I did not know it all. I must go now.”

“You will get it best from Esther,” said Mrs. Catherine. “I know she has brooded, in secret, over his sin and his death, since ever his sun set in yon terrible waves of blood-guiltiness. Anne, my bairn!” Mrs. Catherine paused, laid her hand upon Anne’s drooping head, and went on, her voice sounding low and solemn. “The Lord uphold and strengthen you for your work; the Lord guide you with the uplifting of His countenance, and give you to walk firm in the midst of tribulation, and not to falter or be weary in the way.”

Once out again upon Oranside, Anne felt the oppression of her terrible secret grow upon her to suffocation. “He is alive! he is alive!”—the words came bursting to her lips; she felt tempted, in the strange, almost irresistible, insanity of the moment, to proclaim it aloud, as she hurried along; running sometimes, with a sick feeling of escaping thereby from the phantom that overshadowed her inmost heart. The crime itself seemed to become dimmer, in its far distance. The thought that Norman was alive, laden with his fearful burden of remorse and blood-guiltiness, abiding perchance the shameful death of the murderer, filled her whole being almost to frenzy, and, with its circle of possibilities, curdled her very blood with terror.

“A pleasant morning for walking, Miss Ross,” she said, as Anne took her seat at the table.

“Why, Anne, have you been out?” exclaimed Lewis. “You have good taste certainly, so far as weather goes. Where do you go to, so early in the morning?”

“Oh, no doubt she has been at the Tower,” said Mrs. Ross. “Duncan and May will be going next. We are possessed with a Tower fever. I presume you were making tender inquiries after Mr. Sutherland, Miss Ross? At this time, of course, it is quite sentimental and romantic to entertain a friendship—nay, perhaps, something warmer than friendship—for the interesting unfortunate.”

“I might have asked for poor Archibald,” said Anne, “if I had thought of him at all; but I did not remember even that he had come home.”

“Then you have been at the Tower?”

Anne hesitated. “I did go in to see Mrs. Catherine,” she said, falteringly.

Lewis looked up gratefully, and smiled upon her with a smile which said, “I thank you;” before which Anne shrank, and turned away her head.

“I do not know how we shall get on in the ordinary affairs of life,” continued Mrs. Ross, “while this Tower madness lasts. I should like to know wherein the fascination lies. One can understand a passing infatuation, in a boy like Lewis; but for you, Anne, who should have some idea of propriety and decorum, to be visiting the house, where you knew that young man had arrived at night, so very early in the morning—I really am amazed; I do not understand it.”

Anne blushed painfully: Lewis drew himself up in towering indignation. “Passing infatuation!”—”a boy like Lewis!”

There was a fortunate diversion made, however, by the entrance of May, with letters, and until their meal was ended, there was a cessation of hostilities, though Mrs. Ross still kept up a fugitive fire, hitting right and left, Lewis and Anne alternately. The breakfast over, Lewis rose to leave the room.

“Oh!” exclaimed his mother. “I suppose you are going to the Tower.”

He left the room. Mrs. Ross followed him with her eyes in astonishment, and then going to the window, watched him turn up Oranside. Anne sat in terror, lest she should be questioned as to the mystery of Lewis’ words, but fortunately, she was not. Mrs. Ross sat down, and took her sewing. Anne had done so before, and the two ladies pursued their work in silence.

The needle trembled in Anne’s excited fingers; she felt the acceleration of her pulse, she heard the loud, quick throbbing of her heart. The silence became awful; she fancied Mrs. Ross could hear her fingers stumbling at every stitch. “Mother,” she said, looking up at last. “I have a great favor to ask of you.”

Mrs. Ross glanced at her impatiently. “Well; what is it?”

“You spoke to me once, of a letter—a letter,” continued Anne, growing bolder, as she steadied her voice, “which my unhappy brother, Norman, wrote to my father; you said I might see it some time, mother!”

“Upon my word, girl, I believe you want to drive me mad,” exclaimed Mrs. Ross, angrily. “You see me half distracted, with the wilfulness and regardlessness of Lewis, and you bring in your own foolish fancies, and your brother’s shameful story, as if I had not enough to vex me without that. Try to come down to ordinary life a little, and do not torment me with your chimeras.”

“This is no chimera,” said Anne, “nor whim, nor fancy, nor anything of the kind; it is of the gravest importance that I should see that letter. It is not even curiosity, though I need hardly be blamed for feeling deep interest in the history of my brother. For the sake of my father’s memory, and for the sake of Lewis, the two bonds between us, give me Norman’s letter. I will ask nothing further of you; this I must beg and plead for, this you must give me.”

Mrs. Ross stared angrily in her face, resenting, and yet something impressed by the very strange tone of command, which, impelled by the vehemence of her feelings, mingled with Anne’s entreaty. At last she rose, and walking quickly to her desk, opened it, and took from an inner drawer a small key, which she threw upon the table.

“There! let me have no further heroics; that is the key of an old bureau of your father’s, which you will find up stairs among the lumber. The letter is in some of the drawers. At least, don’t let me have any further trouble about it. I yield to you now, only to take away from you the power of tormenting me at another time.”

Her fingers trembled so with haste and agitation, that she could scarcely open the many drawers, and examine their contents. In the last of all she found the letter, wrapped in a large sheet of paper, within which was something written, in the tremulous scratchy hand, which Anne knew to be her father’s. With Norman’s letter before her, she yet paused to read the comment of the dead—a comment which startled her into wild agitation, and still wilder hope.

Norman Rutherford’s sister was kneeling before his portrait—her clasped hands holding her forehead, her eyes raining hot tears, her soul poured out before God. Norman was alive—could be prayed for, hoped for, toiled for. The curse was turned into a blessing. The path was wintry still, and bare, and laborious; but that horrible spectre of blood was gone; and the majestic presence of justice, and the clear rays of hope, were on the way instead. She was able for all labor, all patience, all sorrow in his cause. Norman was innocent.

Anna rose at length, folded the precious letters carefully, placed them in her bosom, and then hastily descended the stair, and set out again for the old nurse’s cottage, to learn, according to her original intention, the particulars of this dark history there. The Oran moaned no more, but only murmured plaintively, between his banks, the kindly song of home; and Anne, as she passed under the trees, almost with a light heart, murmured to herself the prayer of Alice Aytoun’s song—for the wayfaring man.

The nurse herself, in her gown and petticoat of dark print, and white cap bordered with narrow lace, and carefully-kept hood of black velvet, sat sewing by the fire, making shirts for her sailor son, then far away in a man-of-war, toiling upon the sea. Esther was alone, so there was no obstacle in the way of Anne’s errand.

“Esther,” she said, when she had delayed nervously for some time, in indifferent conversation, “I have come to ask you about a very grave matter, of which I only heard recently. A secret, Esther—you know—”

She paused. Esther looked up gravely in her face, and then, rising, closed the door.

“Mr. Norman?” she asked in a very low voice.

“Yes,” said Anne. “You know it all, Esther?”

Anne looked at her inquisitively, uncertain how far her knowledge went, or whether it was safe to speak to her of Norman, as alive.

“Ye are doubtful of me, Miss Anne,” said Esther. “I see it in your eye. What of this story do ye ken yoursel? Have ye heard it all?”

Anne faltered.

“I do not know, Esther. I have heard—”

“Let me tell ye what I ken,” interrupted the nurse, “and then ye can give me your full trust. I claim nothing less from your mother’s bairn. Miss Anne, your brother Norman lies under the reproach of a black crime—the blackest that man can be blotted wi’. Folk think that he is dead, and he is guilty; he is not either the one nor the other. He is a living and an innocent man!”

Anne’s whole frame thrilled with joy as the words were said.—Solemn as was the testimony of the dead, and deeply as her hapless brother’s self-defence moved her, the words seemed surer and more hopeful when a living voice pronounced them.

“I want you to tell me everything, Esther,” she said, eagerly.—”I have Norman’s letter, and my father’s testimony, but, except these, I have heard little. This morning I was in despair, because I knew that Norman lived, and believed that he was guilty. Now, I can do anything. His innocence is all I care for. Tell me what can be done to prove his innocence—rather, I should say, tell me every circumstance, Esther—tell me all you know.”

“I care about his innocence also,” said Esther. “Yes, living or dead, I care about that first. But, Miss Anne, ye dinna ken—ye canna fathom how dearly I care about himsel. He was laid in my arms a helpless, greeting bairn, the first day o’ his life; wi’ my ain hands I put his first mortal claes about him—my boy!—my gallant, mirthful boy! And to think of him spending his best years toiling in a strange country, wi’ a dark end hanging ower him, his name cursed, and his lands lost!—and him an innocent man! Oh! I have thought upon it till my heart was like to burst!”

“Why did you not tell me?” said Anne. “We have lost years! Esther, there might have been something done long ago, if you had only told me.”

“I durstna,” said the nurse. “I was feared to whisper to mysel that he was living, for fear of trouble; but now, Miss Anne, now, ye have your work before ye—and a strange work it is for a young lady. But ye maunna shrink or fail.”

“I will not—do not fear me,” said Anne. “Only tell me, Esther—tell me everything you know—let us lose no more time.”

Anne assented, and Esther went on. “Miss Anne, he was the sweetest bairn that was ever putten into mortal hands for earthly upbringing. I think I can see him before me yet; aye the head o’ them a’ in their wild plays, and never out o’ mischief; but, for a’ that, as gentle as a lamb. I used to tell them, when they came in to me wi’ torn claes and dirty shoes, and blythe, black faces, that they were the plagues o’ my life—eh! Miss Anne, the ill o’ thae idle words—they were its very joy and sunshine; my blythe callants!—my bonnie, brave, pleasant bairns!

“For Mr. Norman was alike in age wi’ my Willie, and the twa were like brithers; they lay in the same cradle, and were nursed in the same arms—puir, feckless, withered arms, as they are noo!—and I had a conceit that they were like ane an ither, though Mr. Norman was head and shouthers higher than Willie, and had eyes like stars in a frosty nicht, and hair as dark as the clouds; and Willie was blue-e’ed and fair-haired, like his father before him. Ony way, they were like in spirit; the very look of them was heartsome in a house.

“But there was ane thing special, Miss Anne, about your brother; a thought o’ pleasure never entered his head; he had a sunshine within himsel that keepit him aye cheery; and the bits o’ dawting, and good things, and makings o’, that ither bairns fecht for, he heeded not, though I never saw a laddie that liket better the quietest mark of kindliness: only, if there was onything like a privilege or an honor, he would aye have it wared on the rest; no jealous and grudging, like as ye will see some bairns, that are learned to pretend to do the like, and no to be selfish; but with a blythe spark shining in his eye, enjoying the good thing, whatever it was, far mair than if he had gotten it himsel.

“It might be because Mr. Lawrence was aye delicate, and bid to get his ain way; but the maist of it, without doubt, was in the nature. My ain Willie was a kindly callant, as need to be; but I have seen him (who was only a poor man’s son, and no equal to the young Laird,) standing out against Mr. Lawrence in his pets, when Mr. Norman gaed way, in his blythe, frank manner, without sae much as a thought about ony pride o’ his ain; and I have kent him, money a time, when ony o’ them were in the wrang, taking the blame upon himsel.

“Weel, Mr. Lawrence died, as ye ken. If he was petted whiles, it was wi’ sickness and suffering—pain that the young spirit could ill bear, and that awfu’ cough; but he was a blessed bairn, and departed as calm and pleasant as an angel gaun hame—as truly he was, puir lamb!—out of a world that had held nothing but ill to him; and the other bairns dwined away from the house o’ Merkland. Eh! Miss Anne, ane canna read thae sore and sorrowful dispensations! To think that there should be sae mony blythe families round about, wi’ no ane wee head lifted out among them, and a’ the Mistress’s lilies gathered—a’ but Mr. Norman; and ye wad have thought the rest had left a portion of their life to him, as that strange lassie, Jacky Morison, was saying to me out of a book of ballants, about three knights—aye as the ane was killed, the spirit and the strength of him entered into the other; but that’s a fule story. So, as I was saying, ye might have thought it was so wi’ Mr. Norman; for, the mair death there was in the house, the stronger and fuller of life he grew. Ye may think, Miss Anne, how the Mistress’s heart was bound up in her one son, growing among tears and troubles, like a strong young tree by the waterside.

“And then she died hersel. He wad be haill eighteen then, maistly a man; and ye wad have thought his heart would burst. For months after that, he used to come in and sit beside me in the nursery, never speaking a word. We were the truest mourners in Merkland, him and me, and maybe it made us like ane anither a’ the better.

“So he sat down by the fireside and covered his face wi’ his hands, and did not say a word to me—only I heard him moaning to himsel, ‘O, mother, mother!’ Nae wonder—we were wearing our murnings still, and she had been but ae twelvemonth gone.

“So the marriage-day came at last. I had flitted into this house the week afore—and there were mony folk at the wedding, only Mrs. Catherine, and Strathoran’s lady, and some more, wouldna come; and when they sought Mr. Norman, he wasna to be found far or near—where think ye he spent that day, Miss Anne? at his mother’s grave!

“Ye’re wearying on me—it’s just because it’s a’ sae clear in my ain mind—I canna help it; but I am coming to the time noo. Mr. Norman ye ken, had an inheritance o’ his ain by the mother’s side. Your uncle, Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, was a bachelor gentleman, and died three or four years before your mother—and Mr. Norman was his heir. He was to take both the land and the name, and I have heard it was a better property than Merkland, only it was far south by this, on the ither side o’ Edinburgh. Mr. Norman was to bide wi’ his father till he came of age, and a sore and weary time it was, for this Mrs. Ross couldna bear the sicht of him, and he likit her as ill. I maistly wished for his ain sake that the time was come, though it was a sore thought to me that I was to have the sight o’ him, gladdening my auld e’en (I wasna sae auld then either nae mair).

“And at last his one-and-twentieth birthday came, and he gaed away. I did not see him after that for a whole year. The light of my eyes was ta’en from me, Miss Anne—I had little pleasure of my life, for both my boys were away.

Esther paused to wipe her eyes with her apron.

“Eh, Miss Anne, thae sore and humbling providences! just when ane thought every thing was prosperous and full of promise to be cast down into the very depths—my heart was sick within me. I had no more spirit for onything, but just gaed about the house like a ghaist, and caredna to spin, as the lass says in the sang. Mr. Norman did his endeavor to free my puir laddie, but it couldna be—and ye may think what a clould fell upon me, dwelling here alane, and my son far away in the dangers o’ the war, where, if he were spared, I couldna see him for years.

“Mr. Norman came seldom back to Merkland after that. He liked Mrs. Ross but little at all times, and I think he reproached himsel for no being carefu’ enough of Willie, though I never blamed him—no for a moment; but onyway he was altogether pairted from his ain auld hame—no that he forgot us; there was aye the tither bit present coming to me, at New-year’s times, and his birth-days and the like; and many fine claes and toys, and things, to yoursel, Miss Anne, that ye didna get the half o’—

“So three years ran out, and ane day when I happened to be up at Merkland, on some errand concerning yoursel, ye came, to me, Miss Anne, wi’ a paper in your hand, to let me hear ye read (ye were six years auld then.) So I got the paper—ye had slipped it out o’ the lockit book-case in the library, the time your papa was writing a letter, and didna see ye. I mind the very words ye said—because I likit to see the papers—and so I did, to see what word there was about the war, and if there was ony tidings of Willie’s ship. Sae I got it, and began to read it, the time Mr. Lewis and you were playing at my fit.

“I know not how I gaed hame that day; it was a bonnie day in June, but I thought that the sky, and the earth, and the trees, were a’ black alike, and the running of the Oran was hoarse and loud, like the wild sea that was flowing over my dear, dear bairn. It was before my eyes night and day, sleeping and waking. I kent he couldna have done it out of evil counsel or malice, but he might have done it in passion. The sinking ship, and the storm, and the black sky, and my pleasant laddie in the midst, wi’ bluid on his hand, and despair in his soul; oh, Miss Anne!

“A month past in that way. I dauredna face Merkland, and he never came near me, and I thought not there was any hope for Mr. Norman; I never doubted he was dead. In the beginning of July, I got a letter from Willie, telling me his ship was lying in Leith Roads, and I was to come and see him. So I put up a bit bundle, and took some lying siller, and set out upon the road. I wanted to buy some bits of things the puir laddie needed, and so I couldna afford to tak the coach, but walked every step, and a weary road it was. So Willie met me in my cousin’s house in the Citadel, and whenever our first meeting was ower, he came after me to the room I was to sleep in, and shut the door, and I saw there was trouble in his face. So I did not doubt he had heard. ‘Mother,’ he said to me, ‘I have news to tell you.’

“ ‘Oh, Willie!’ said I. ‘I ken, I ken; it has near broken my heart.’

“So Willie went to the door again, and saw it was safe shut, and said he, ‘Mother, what do ye ken?’

“ ‘About Mr. Norman, my dear laddie,’ said I; ‘that he has been left to himself, and done a terrible crime, and died a terrible death. Oh, that we had but kent that he repented; oh, that we had ony token that the Lord had visited his soul.’

“ ‘Ane disna ken—ane canna tell,’ said I; ‘he never did it wi’ purpose and counsel, Willie; but he may have been beguiled by passion. God send that it hasna been counted to him.’

“ ‘Mother,’ said Willie. ‘Whisht! mind that a precious life is hinging on’t. I have seen Mr. Norman.’

“Miss Anne, I thought I would have fa’en at his feet, for what could I think, but that it was the unquiet spirit my puir laddie had seen.

“ ‘Mother,’ said Willie, ‘God has saved him out o’ the sea, near by a miracle. Mr. Norman is a living man, and an innocent man. The hand that saved him will clear him in its ain guid time; but he bade me tell you. He couldna bear, he said, that folk that had kent him, and likit him weel should think he had done that crime; and he minded me that folk could pray for a living man, and couldna for a dead, and bade me tell you, mother.’

“ ‘O, Willie!’ said I, ‘wherefore did he flee?—the right would have been proved, if he had but waited for the trial.’

“ ‘I canna tell ye, mother,’ said Willie, ‘but he said every thing was against him; and it was borne in on my mind, that he knew wha had dune the deed, and that it was ane he likit weel and was willing to suffer for—ye ken his nature—but mind, that was only a fancy o’ my ain, for he did not mint a word of it to me.’

“ ‘And where was he, Willie?’ said I, ‘where was my dear laddie?—was he out of peril?”

“ ‘It was in a town on the Holland coast,’ said Willie, ‘a bit sma place, less than Portoran. They had travelled there on fit, from the place where the boat was cast away; and Mr. Norman was waiting till there should be some ship sailing from Rotterdam to India. He said to me, mother, that he would never daur write hame again; but if he died he would cause that word should be sent baith to Merkland and you—but as lang as ye didna hear, ye were to mind and pray for him, as a living and sorrowful man, and no to think he was dead.’

“ ‘My laddie!’ said I, ‘my dear bairn!—oh, that the Lord would bring forth His righteousness as the noonday, and His judgment as the morning light. Ye said they, Willie—was there onybody wi’ him?’

“So that was a’ that Willie had to tell, and in little mair than a week after that, his ship sailed again, and when I was on my road hame, I went first of a’ to the place where the deed was done. Its on the south side o’ the Firth, far down—but I could find out naething there, except that everybody blamed Mr. Norman, and naebody would believe but what he was the murderer.

“And since then, Miss Anne—it’s seventeen years past in the last July—I have been a bereaved woman, for Willie never came hame but ance, when the war was ended, and that was just for a while, for he had pleased his captain unco weel, and was made gunner in the ship, and he had got used wi’ their life, and liked it, so he just gaed back. He said to me, I mind, that he might aye be in the way of hearing tidings of Mr. Norman, and would come hame without delay if there was ony guid word. But word, guid or bad, there has been nane since that time, Miss Anne; a weary time it has been to me—but your brother is a living man, and the work is not too late.”

“What can be done?” said Anne; “what can be done?”

She felt an impulse to rise and hurry to the work at once. She felt it a sin to lose a moment. Yet all the difficulties rose up before her. What steps to take—what to do!

“Miss Anne,” said Esther; “I have pondered it, and ower again pondered it in my ain mind since I came hame frae that weary journey, and often I have been on the point of gaun away back again, to see if I could hear onything mair. But what I would bid ye do, would be to gang, or to get some of thae keen writer chiels to gang, cannily, without letting on what they want, to do their endeavor to find out if onybody else in that countryside had an ill-will at Mr. Aytoun: he was a wild man, I heard, and nae doubt had enemies—and if ony other man had been seen leaving the wood that awful morning bye Mr. Norman. There’s been a lang time lost, but I’ve thought often, it might maybe put the real sinner aff his guard, and so he micht be easier found. Miss Anne, that is the way, sae far as I can see. Ye maun try and find the true man that did it, living or dead.”

“And bring disgrace and ruin into some other peaceful family, Esther,” said Anne, sadly. “It is a terrible alternative!”

“I had no thought of faltering, Esther,” said Anne. “I only said it was a very sad and terrible alternative, and so it is—if William was correct—if we are to endeavor to prove the guilt of one whom Norman was willing to sacrifice name and fame for, it is only so much the more painful. Yet I do not falter—you say truly, Norman must be saved—if it is within human power to clear his name, he shall be saved. But, oh! for guidance—for wisdom!”

When Anne left the house, Esther accompanied her to the door, earnestly urging upon her the necessity of losing no time. To lose no time!—no, surely; when, for all Alice Aytoun’s sunny lifetime, Norman had been an outcast and an exile.

And the “Marion!”—who was this who had not deserted him in the midnight of his calamity? this who had been bolder amidst the perils of the wreck than he, and who had gone with him to the unknown far country, the outcast’s wife? Anne’s imagination no longer pictured him alone, abroad beneath sweeping blast and tempest. A calmer air stole over the picture. It might be from some humble toiling home—not bright, yet with a chastened sunshine of hope and patience about it still—that the tidings of restored honor and fortune should call the exile, and the exile’s household, rejoicing to their own land.

Even Alice felt it, as she sat in her corner by the window, that delicate embroidery, which she wished to finish for a cap to Mrs. Catherine, before she returned home, trembling in her small fingers, and her heart beating loud and unsteadily. Mrs. Catherine had been so tender to herself this morning, almost as if she knew—it was so strange that she should be cold to Lewis. Mrs. Catherine left the room for a moment: Lewis approached the window, and whispered a petition, that she would meet him at “the little gate.” Alice did not say no. “Immediately,” whispered Lewis. “I have a great deal to say to you.”

Alice laid down her embroidery, and leaving the room, stole tremulously up stairs, to put on her bonnet and shawl, and steal tremulously down again, and out to her first tryste. The little gate stood on a shady by-way, or “loaning,” which ran by Oranside through the grounds of Strathoran and the Tower. Lewis joined her immediately. He had much to say to her—much that was very pleasant to hear, if it was not very wise, nor even very connected and relevant, for Lewis, spite of his boyish pride and self importance, felt truly and deeply, so far as little Alice was concerned, and had not escaped the ameliorating effect of that influence, which, according to the gay old epicurean of our Scottish ballad-writers, “gives one an air, and even improves the mind.”—The youthful couple wandered through the loaning, unconscious in their own dreamy happiness of the chill wind that swept through its high bare hedges, till nearly an hour had passed. But Alice suddenly saw, through the gap in the hedge, Miss Falconer riding quickly to the Tower; she came, by appointment, to bid Alice good-by, and so that most pleasant ramble must, of necessity, be terminated. Alice accompanied Lewis a little further down the lane, lest Marjory’s quick eye should discover him, and then they parted.

Loud gay voices startled her, when she had nearly reached the little gate, and looking up, she saw a couple of gentlemen approaching, whom she immediately knew to belong to Lord Gillravidge’s not very orderly household at Strathoran. The aforesaid little gate was the boundary of Mrs. Catherine’s property, so Alice was then in the grounds of Strathoran—the gentlemen were returning home. Alice proceeded quickly, eager to pass them, for their loud tone startled her, and she was near enough to hear a rude compliment aimed at herself, which sent the womanly blood to her cheek in indignation. They met at last, and suddenly extending their arms, the strangers barred her passage. Little Alice’s heart beat like a frightened bird. She ran to each side of the road, only to shrink back again from the rude hands extended towards her; she looked back to see if there was any chance in flight, she lifted her simple face imploringly to them, and said; “Pray, let me pass; pray, gentlemen, let me pass.” They laughed at her; poor little Alice was in despair.

One of the strangers was the “hairy fule,” who had visited Mrs. Catherine. Jacky’s expressive description of him: “A man, dressed like a gentleman,” was emphatically correct. The other was a simple, foolish, fair-haired lad, who, besides some boyish admiration of the pretty girl, thought this interruption of her progress a pleasant frolic, and good fun. There was no other way of entering the precincts of the Tower, except by the gap in the hedge, which the timid Alice did not dare to venture on, and so she renewed her prayer. “Pray, let me go on; pray, gentlemen, let me pass.”

A crash of the boughs behind her, made Alice turn her head.—Marjory Falconer, riding-whip in hand, came springing through the gap. “What is the matter, Alice?” cried Miss Falconer; “who obstructs you? Gentlemen, be so good as give way.”

The gentlemen laughed. The house of Falconer, like the house of Seton in old days, was of prompt ire, and its sole daughter did it no discredit. “This is great impertinence,” exclaimed Marjory; “pass immediately, or—” she gave an emphatic flourish of her whip.

Little Alice was running on, in a great tremor, to the Tower.—”What is the matter?” said her deliverer, laughing, as she overtook her. “What a trembling, frightened bird you are, little Alice Aytoun. Why, we have had an adventure: only, to be correct, it should have been Lewis Ross who delivered you, and not I: is it so? Ah, I am afraid he has been doing damage here, this same Lewis Ross. It is a great shame—these men monopolize everything; one cannot even get a nice little girl kept to oneself.”

Alice drew herself up. It was not quite proper that she, the head elect of an important house like Merkland, with a shadow of matronly dignity upon her fair brow already, should be spoken of as a little girl. “I was so glad you came, Miss Falconer. It was very foolish, perhaps; but they frightened me.”

“And you had no whip, even if you had been bold enough to use it,” said Miss Falconer, laughing, as she gathered up the train of her riding-habit, which had escaped from her hand, and bore sundry marks (no uncommon thing, however) of its contact with the damp path. “You may be thankful it was my indecorous, unfeminine self, and not any of the proprieties. Suppose it had been Jeannie Coulter—why, they would have caught you both.”

“But Miss Coulter is a very nice girl; is she not?” said Alice.

“Oh! exceedingly—as nice a girl as could be; and will be as good-looking, and proper, and sensible a Mrs. Walter Foreman as it will be possible to find in the country; as proper, and not quite so good-looking, and more sensible, than you will be, when you are Mrs. Lewis Ross; for she has come to years of discretion, you know, and you are only a little girl.”

Alice did not like all this. “I wonder at you, Miss Falconer! I am sure it is far better to be what you call proper than—” Alice hesitated; “I mean, no one thinks Mrs. Catherine, and Mrs. Coulter, and Miss Ross weak, because they are always like what ladies should be.”

This was better: the little matron elect was pleased to have her advice taken, and so ventured further. “And, Miss Falconer, don’t be angry—wouldn’t it be better not to speak so? I don’t like—I mean Anne Ross does not like—she says it makes foolish people laugh, and be impertinent.”

Miss Falconer’s face became crimson. Miss Falconer drew up her tall, handsome figure, to its full height, and looked haughty for a moment. Alice was afraid.

“There! that will do. You will be able to give gentle reproofs, by-and-by, beautifully: only you must not experiment on me much, you know, lest I should grow angry. No, no; do not lift up those blue eyes of yours so pitifully. I am not angry now—but I am sometimes, and I should not like you to see me so.”

The straightforward little Alice looked up in wonder, fancying that the blunt, strong, unschooled mind beside her, might be in the habit of giving way to ungovernable and wild fits of passion, such as she had read of; it was all a mistake. Marjory Falconer was by no means so rude and unfeminine as she gave herself credit for being, and had bitter compunctions of outraged delicacy sometimes, after those masculine speeches, which revenged her womanhood completely. But the little world of Strathoran did not know that—did not know either how the strong and healthful spirit of the motherless, ill-educated girl was forcing itself through a rough process of development, and, like other strong plants, was rank and wild in its growth, and needed vigorous pruning—pruning which it would not fail, by-and-by, to manage for itself, with an unhesitating hand.

So the youthful people of Strathoran laughed, and the elders hung back, and called her improper and unfeminine; and thus the original evil was increased by the grievance of which she herself complained; she was left to the company of men—men, moreover, of that rude, uncultured, sportsman class, her own superiority over whom she felt bitterly, and asserted with characteristic vehemence.

Alice Aytoun saw, when her visitor was gone, still more visibly than she had done in the morning, that Mrs. Catherine was sad.—She could not help observing the long, wistful looks bestowed upon herself—the hundred little indulgences which Mrs. Catherine gave her that day, as she would have given them to a sick child; and Alice wondered. These steadfast, compassionate looks became painful at last, and there was so great a chill of gravity and sadness about the stranger, Archibald Sutherland, that Alice, carried that tremulous happiness of hers—so much deeper, and yet so much less exuberant than it had been one little month ago—into her own pretty room.

Ah! that breadth of hazy air which hovered between the house of Merkland and Alice Aytoun’s chamber window, how full of beautiful shapes it was—and how instinct with gladness! Mrs. Catherine dined at four—never later, except on some very great and solemn occasion; and when dinner was over that day, and the darkness of the long January night had begun, Mrs. Catherine took her youthful kinswoman by the arm, and led her away from the dining-room without speaking. They did not go up stairs; they went away through that dim passage, and stopped at the door of the little room. Alice was terrified. Mrs. Catherine unlocked the door, drew the girl in with her, and closed it again in silence. Alice’s heart began to beat loud, in awe and terror. What strange discipline was this?

There was a fire burning brightly; the waning gloaming without gave the whins, that almost touched the window, a ghostly look. The gray crag above seemed to be looking in with a pale, withered, inquisitive face. Mrs. Catherine seated herself on one of the chairs and bade Alice take the other. The firelight fell warm and bright upon that fine dark portrait on the opposite wall. There was a lamp upon the table, but it was not lighted. Alice sat trembling, silent, apprehensive. What could Mrs. Catherine have to tell her?

“Alison,” said Mrs. Catherine, “do you see that picture?”

“Yes,” said Alice, timidly.

The light was hovering about it, shooting now a spark of radiance into the eye, and now moving in a strange, fantastic smile upon the lip. Alice had heard from some of the visitors at the Tower of Mrs. Catherine’s brother, and knew that this was his portrait.

“Ye ken who it is?—my one brother, Sholto Douglas,” said Mrs. Catherine. “Look at him well. Do you see how strong, and full of health, and strength, and youth that face is, Alison? Look at him well.”

“Alison,” said Mrs. Catherine, “I want to tell you the history of Sholto Douglas. Sit quiet, and do not tremble, but listen to me.”

Alice tried not to tremble—she could scarcely help it. The ghostly inquisitive crag, behind which she could fancy some malicious elf watching them—the dark whins pressing close to the window—the dreary sough of the wind as it swept through the bare trees without, and the long passages within, moaning so eerie and spirit-like—the calm, unmoved face looking down from the wall—the comparative gloom of this sacred and mysterious apartment—she could not repress the involuntary thrill of fear and wonder.

“Sholto Douglas was my one brother—we were the sole children of our name,” said Mrs. Catherine, her utterance so slow and marked the while, that it was easy to recognise this as the history of her great sorrow, “and I cannot tell you how dear we were to one another. You are a bairn, yourself, of too gentle and quiet a spirit. You cannot know the loves and griefs of harsher natures.

“We were never separate a day; we were bairns; we grew up into youth; we passed to manhood and to womanhood hand in hand. In his earliest flush of strength and manliness, Sholto was arrested on the way. I am a woman now laden with years, and drawing near to the grave, but, bairn, there is no earthly motive that would rouse me to any work or labor like the remembrance of my brother Sholto, that I left lying in foreign earth, thirty years ago.

“That is not the matter I have to speak of first. When Sholto Douglas was in the strength of his youthful manhood he was trysted in solemn betrothal, whereof I myself was a witness, to Isabel Balfour, the mother of the young man who came to my house last night. She was a gentle, pleasant, gladsome girl, like your own self, Alison Aytoun. I liked her well before for her own sake, and I liked her dearly then for Sholto’s. The day was set for the bridal—the whole kindred were stirred to do them honor—there was nothing in their way, but joy, and blessings, and prosperity, as we thought in our vain hope. Alison! between them there was the stern and sore shadow of death, and they knew it not!

“I saw him dying before me day by day. Into my heart there had never mortal man entered but Sholto, my one brother; and in his prime of youth, with hopes thick about his brow like the clusters of his hair, was the Lord parting him from me. I could not hope—when Isabel leant upon his chair, and looked into his face—his cheek with its bright color, and his glorious e’en—and smiled and rejoiced, and said he would be well, I turned from her, my heart within me sick unto death. I knew he was a doomed man—I saw there was no hope.

“They said at last that the air of some sunnier country would heal him of his trouble, and I prepared for the journey; anxiously I pleaded with Isabel to go with us, that he might have the comfort of her presence. Her kindred would not let her—she thought it not needful herself, neither did he: they would meet again, he said, so soon in health and gladness. I turned away from him—my heart was bursting. I kent they would never meet again—I kent that I took him away to die.

“Alison, I saw the parting of the two. I saw the sick hope in Isabel Balfour’s face, and the wan courage in Sholto’s—their hearts misgave them at that moment. There is a shadow of fear upon all partings, and it was deepened upon theirs. As for me, my sky could not well be darker—it was not fear with me, but a deadly knowledge. I kent they would never meet again.

“And so I went away with him—guarding the young man that had been so strong and healthful, from every blast of wind, as ye would guard a sick bairn. I went with him to Italy—to France—syne when he got no stronger—I took him away to that sunny island in the sea, where so many are sent to die. His doom was upon him—the light was in his eye more glorious than ever, the hectic was burning on his cheek. What was the soft air and the beautiful days, in comparison with the might of death. He died. I saw him laid in the cold earth of a foreign country, far away from the grave of his fathers, and turned in my desolation to come back to my own country, my lane.

“Alison! you do not ken the blackness of darkness, the shadow of that terrible wing of death. Think of it—think of my desolate journey—think of my first parting with my one brother. Could ye have borne a woe like that?”

Alice was weeping—she had forgot herself and Lewis for the moment. Her gentle heart could not fathom the stern depths of suffering, which still swelled in Mrs. Catherine’s larger spirit, but she recognized the sovereignty of grief, and answered with her tears:

“Know you, Alison, that there are woes like that wherever there are living men?—that there is some shadow on every lot, how fair soever, may be its beginning?—that even the like of you, in your youth and smiles, have a weird to watch and weep through, every one of you for her own self, and not another?”

Alice looked up—the tears stealing over her cheeks, the “hysterica passio” swelling up in its “climbing sorrow” in her tightened breast. Her blue eyes looked fearfully and anxiously in Mrs. Catherine’s face. This most sad history, Alice felt, was the preface of some personal evil to herself, some misfortune to Lewis. She could not speak—she only looked imploringly in sad fear and wonder into the face of her kinswoman.

“My poor bairn!” said Mrs. Catherine, “you can think how Isabel mourned in her dark solitude? ye can feel for Isabel?”