"Wha wad it be but Bess!" he replied, still sobbing. "And she did-na cam back," he recommenced, raising his streaming eyes and clasped hands to heaven, as he joined complaint to complaint thus:--"And she'll niver cam back! and she was aw I had! and I'll niver see her bonny face more! nor her bairn, that I could ha' loved for being Betsy's bairn, if the deevil had been the fayther on't! He has murdered her i' the sands!" he added, sternly and suddenly, and he faced round as he spoke, "to be clean rid bathe o' her and the bairn!" "Silence! silence, man!" exclaimed Mrs. Montgomery, in a voice of authority. Then, too much shocked and affected to experience, in full, the indignation she must otherwise have felt on hearing Henry thus accused, she added, "For heaven's sake compose yourself! The horrible suspicion which agitates you in this dreadful manner, it is quite impossible should have any foundation! My nephew, however imprudent he may have been, is much too young a creature to have even thought of an enormity such as this!" "Then where is Betsy?" said the poor man, looking up in her face. "I shall insist on Henry's declaring all he knows about her," replied Mrs. Montgomery. "Depend upon it, she is perfectly safe in some lodging in Whitehaven, or some cottage in this neighbourhood, perhaps." The poor father smiled. It was a ghastly and a momentary smile. "Heaven grant it!" he ejaculated. "Henry has behaved most imprudently," continued Mrs. Montgomery, "in marrying, as you assure me he has done: and very wickedly, in endeavouring to deny it, when done; and I shall see that he does your daughter, if she be a modest girl, every justice, however ruinous to his prospects, ill-fated being! But you ought, indeed, my good man, you ought to take care, how you accuse any one, lightly, of such a crime as you have ventured to name! Were it not that I see your own internal sufferings are so dreadful, that you scarcely know what you say, and that it all proceeds from parental affection, in which I can sympathise, I should, indeed, be very much, and very justly offended!" But there was no severity in Mrs. Montgomery's tone: she looked, while she spoke, at her own daughter, and her mind glanced at what was, and what was not, parallel in situation, and she could have pardoned almost any extravagance in poor David. "Weel, weel," he replied, and forgetting ceremony, he sat down on a chair, and leaned back quite exhausted.