"Then I said to him, 'That is the reason I wish to talk to you. I wished you to come to meet me because I wanted to tell you that I regret and deplore the feud between our fathers.'--'Ah, you wished me to come?' he asked.--'Of course I did,' I answered, 'else why should I be here?'--'No one regrets the feud between our houses so deeply as I,' replied Sir John. 'I can think of nothing else by day, nor can I dream of anything else by night. It is the greatest cause for grief and sorrow that has ever come into my life.' You see, Cousin Malcolm," the girl continued, "I was right. His father's conduct does trouble him. Isn't he noble and broad-minded to see the evil of his father's ways?" I did not tell the girl that Sir John's regret for the feud between the houses of Manners and Vernon grew out of the fact that it separated him from her; nor did I tell her that he did not grieve over his "father's ways." I asked, "Did Sir John tell you that he grieved because of his father's ill-doing?" "N-o, not in set terms, but--that, of course, would have been very hard for him to say. I told you what he said, and there could be no other meaning to his words." "Of course not," I responded. "No, and I fairly longed to reach out my hand and clutch him, because--because I was so sorry for him." "Was sorrow your only feeling?" I asked. The girl looked at me for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. Then she sobbed gently and said, "Oh, Cousin Malcolm, you are so old and so wise." ("Thank you," thought I, "a second Daniel come to judgment at thirty-five; or Solomon and Methuselah in one.") She continued: "Tell me, tell me, what is this terrible thing that has come upon me. I seem to be living in a dream. I am burning with a fever, and a heavy weight is here upon my breast. I cannot sleep at night. I can do nothing but long and yearn for--for I know not what--till at times it seems that some frightful, unseen monster is slowly drawing the heart out of my bosom. I think of--of him at all times, and I try to recall his face, and the tones of his voice until, Cousin Malcolm, I tell you I am almost mad. I call upon the Holy Virgin hour by hour to pity me; but she is pure, and cannot know what I feel. I hate and loathe myself. To what am I coming? Where will it all end? Yet I can do nothing to save myself. I am powerless against this terrible feeling. I cannot even resolve to resist it. It came upon me mildly that day at The Peacock Inn, when I first saw him, and it grows deeper and stronger day by day, and, alas! night by night. I seem to have lost myself. In some strange way I feel as if I had sunk into him--that he had absorbed me." "The iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain," thought I.