Alice shivered, and glanced up in trembling wonder. Mrs. Catherine went on: "The name of him was Norman Rutherford. He was a young man, as gallant and as generous as ever breathed mortal breath. Why he was left to himself in so dreadful a way, I cannot tell. It will never be known on this earth. Alison Aytoun, are you hearing me? Norman Rutherford, your father's murderer, was the nearest kindred of Lewis Ross; he was his brother!" A long, low cry of pain, involuntary and unconscious, came from Alice Aytoun's lips. She turned from Mrs. Catherine's lap, and covered her face with her hands. There was nothing more to say or to hope; and the mist and film of her first sorrow blinded and stilled the girlish heart, which beat so gay and high when that dull morning rose. By-and-by, she had wandered up stairs, and was in her own room alone. The room was dim, and cheerless, and cold, she thought; and Alice laid herself down upon her bed, and hid her sad, white face in the pillow, and silently wept. The girlish light heart sank down under its sudden burthen, without another struggle. "I am not strong," murmured little Alice; "and there is no one with me." There was no one with her. Never before had any misfortune come to her youthful knowledge, which could not be shared. Now the shrinking, delicate spirit, half child, half woman, had entered into the very depths of a woe which must be borne alone. The dull, leaden darkness gathered round her; the tears flowed over her white cheek in a continuous stream; and into the dim, disconsolate air the plaintive young voice sounded sadly, instinctively calling on its mother's name. Alice was alone! CHAPTER XIII. When Anne entered Merkland after her visit to the nurse's cottage, and was proceeding, as usual to her own room, she was stopped by Duncan. "Miss Anne," said Duncan, significantly, "Merkland is in the parlor." "Well, Duncan," said Anne, "what of that? Does Lewis want me?" "Na, I'm no saying that," said the cautious Duncan; "but I just thought within mysel that maybe ye were wanting to see the Laird; and he's in the parlor, and so's the mistress. Mr. Lewis has been hame this half-hour." Anne comprehended. The clouds of the morning had broken into a storm, and Duncan, with whom "Mr. Lewis," partly as a child of his own training, and partly as the Laird of Merkland, was a person of the very highest importance, and not to be teased and incommoded by "a wheen woman," desired her interposition to receive the tempest upon her own head, and avert it from Lewis, as was the general wont, when Anne made her appearance in the midst of any quarrel between the mother and son. "I will return immediately, Duncan," she said, as she ran up stairs to take off her cloak and bonnet. Duncan turned away satisfied.