"Ay," replied the Jesuit, "and have on me now a letter to him from her, suing, I believe, for forgiveness. Douglas!" he exclaimed, seizing the other by the arm, "Bertie must pardon her. You must make him. Otherwise----" "What?" "I fear I know not what. Her love for him is what it ever was, stronger, fiercer, may be, because of the treachery that tore them asunder; she thinks of him alone. And if she grows desperate Heaven knows what may be the outcome of it. Murder of Simeon! betrayal of him! Self-slaughter! She is capable of all or any, if goaded too far. He must forgive her." "Forgive her!" exclaimed his younger brother. "Forgive her! Why, who shall doubt it; what possesses your mind? There is no fear of that. No, that is not what there is to fear." "What then?" asked Archibald, bewildered. "That if they should once again meet no power on earth could ever part them more. Even now he broods all day, and night too, on finding her, on carrying her off by force. There are scores of our countrymen in London in disguise who would do it for him at his bidding or help him to do it as well as to slay Fordingbridge. I tell you, Archie, he would stand at nothing. Nothing! Why, man, as we fought side by side at Prestonpans he muttered a score of times, 'Kate, Kate, Kate.' And once, as he cut down an officer of Fowke's dragoons, he exclaimed, 'Each Hanoverian dog who falls brings us so much the nearer to London and me to Kate.' Faith! though the battle lasted but four minutes, he muttered her name ten times as often." "Come," said the other, "let us go in to him. I would I knew what is best to do. Ah, well! most affairs settle themselves. Pray Heaven this one may." Over a fire, burning in an ancient grate constructed for the consumption of wood alone, they found Bertie Elphinston brooding, as his friend had described. And as all the Scotch had done who had sought a hiding-place in London after the defeat of the Stuart army in Scotland, any marks that might proclaim their nationality had been carefully exchanged--where the purse allowed--for more English traits and characteristics. Therefore Elphinston was now clad as any other gentleman of the time might be, plainly but well--a branched velvet coat with a satin lining, a black silk embroidered waistcoat, and breeches of velvet in keeping with the coat constituting his dress, while he wore his own hair, of a dark-brown colour and slightly curly. Against the side of the large open-mouthed grate and near to his hand there reclined an ordinary plate-handled sword, with the belt hanging to it as when unbuckled from the body; deeper in a recess might be seen two claymores, with which weapons the Scotch had recently inflicted such deadly slaughter on the Duke of Cumberland's troops.