“I’ll tell ye, Mossgray,” said Margaret, quickly, the arm which she had extended to bar my entrance falling to her side. “It wad be dearly telling her, she had been ill this day. She’ll live yet to ken, that the sorest fever that ever chained a mortal to a sick bed wad hae been a blessed tether o’ her wilful feet this woefu’ morning. Dinna think o’ her, Maister Adam. I ken it’s hard, but ye maun try; dinna think o’ her--she’s no wurdy o’t.” I clutched the woman’s arm, angry and eager. I could not speak. “Weel then, she’s gane--she’s away--her that was the light o’ our e’en--that we couldna see ill in--that I’ve heard ye even to the very angels, Mossgray. She’s gane--fled out from her father’s house with yon young haverel o’ a doctor, that has neither wealth to keep, nor wit to fend for her. Oh, guid forgie me, Mr Adam! what have I dune?” My face alarmed her, I fancy. I pressed blindly in--Walter Johnstone stood before me. I was close upon him before I was aware of his presence; I looked in his face. He turned from me with a burst of emotion, which seemed to wake me from some terrible nightmared sleep. “Mossgray, I did not know it--I had no suspicion of this. Believe me, Adam, believe me, that I am blameless! She has deceived us all!” I felt a hoarse contradiction struggling from my dry lips--still I could not hear _her_ blamed. Then I turned away; I could hold no further parley with any one; I hurried into the sheltering solitude of my own lonely house. The bright world without mocked and scorned me--the passers-by looked wonderingly at my stricken face. I could not linger by the water-side now, in the first shock of my vanished and ruined dreams. I fled into this solitary room, within the silent walls of which so many slow years have passed since then, and threw myself into my chair, and pressed my throbbing head between my hands. It was only then that I realized what had come upon me. I am an old man now, and these passionate struggles of youth have faded in the far distance, veiled in the gentler mists of memory. Yet I do remember them--I do remember me of minute and trifling things--the open book lying there upon this floor--the solitary lily drooping in its vase--the snowy leaf that had fallen upon the window-ledge below; and how the pale and fierce light of my calamity fixed the image of them for ever on the tablets of my heart. I remember--it is not such seasons that men can forget. I had lost her for ever--alas! that was not all--she had never been. The conviction forced itself upon me till I grew well nigh mad. I dashed my clenched hands into the air; I could not restrain the wild fit of passion, the irrational frenzy that possessed me. I was alone! the things which I had worshipped and made my idols were things of air--mists of my early morning, melting away before the stern and sober light--and I was left here desolate, forlorn, and solitary, and there was nothing true under the sun.