Emmy thought of Douglas's fortune, and the book fell from her hand. "No, no," she said with a shudder; "I shall not be the adorned victim offered up to this golden idol;" and from that hour she resolved to decline his addresses. On the day succeeding this brave resolution came tidings "that the remnant of Montgomery's Highlanders, under the command of Major Louis Charters, had sailed from New York six weeks ago, and were daily expected at Greenock, from whence that gallant corps had sailed for the wars of the Far West in 1758." Now came Emmy's hour of triumph, and already Louis seemed before her, loving, trusting, and true; and hourly she expected to have, in his own handwriting, assurance of all her heart desired; but, alas! time rolled on--days became weeks--weeks became months, and no tidings reached Britain of the Highlanders of Montgomery. "The lost regiment" was spoken of from time to time, till even friends, comrades, and relations grew tired of futile surmises, and their unaccountable disappearance became like a tale that is told--or a fragment of old and forgotten intelligence. For a time a sickening and painful suspense bad been kept alive by occasional reports of pieces of wreck, with red coats and tartan fluttering about them, having been espied in the Atlantic; vessels waterlogged and abandoned were passed by solitary ships, and averred to be the missing transport; craft answering her description had been seen to founder in tempests off the banks of Newfoundland; but after eight months had elapsed nothing was heard of what was emphatically called _the lost regiment_. Emmy mourned now for Louis as for one who was dead--one who, after all his toil and valour, suffering and constancy (she felt assured he had been constant), was sleeping in the great ocean that had divided them so long. Tired of all this, her friends had arrayed her in mourning as for one who was really dead; and to carry out a plan of realizing this conviction, her father had erected in the church of St. John a handsome marble tablet to the memory of Charters; and this cold white slab _in memoriam_ met Emmy's heavy eyes every time she raised them from her prayer-book on Sunday. So at last Louis was dead--she felt convinced of it, and, with a reluctant and foreboding mind, she consented to a marriage with Captain Douglas of the Black Watch--a consent in which she had but one thought, that in making this terrible sacrifice she was only seeking to soothe the anxiety and gratify the solicitations of her mother, who was now well up in the vale of years, and who loved her tenderly. Emmy was placid and content; but though even cheerful in appearance, she was not happy; for her cheek was ever pale and her soft hazel eyes, with their half-drooping lids, failed to veil a restlessness that seemed to search for something vague and undefined.