"I canna tell," said Jean. "It was my thought he had met Redheugh, or seen him, when the deed was new done--and it stunned the very soul within him, so that he scarce kent in his extremity what it was, that was pitting him distracted. I was asking Rob's wife about him last night: she says his sister and him are living their lane in an unco quiet way. Puir lad!--but he'll be a man of years now." "And ye didna speak to him?" said Jacky. "Speak to him! Lassie, if ye havena a lighter weird than ither folk, ye'll ken before lang, that sore trouble is not to be spoken to. I wad rather gang into a king's chamber unbidden, than put mysel forrit, when I wasna needed, into the heavy presence of grief." "For grief is a king, too," murmured Jacky. "And so it is," said Jean Miller, with another emphatic quiver of her lip--the little narrow Edinburgh attic, in which her student nephew toiled, or ought to toil, rising before her eyes, and her heart yearning over him in unutterable agonies of tenderness--"and so it is--and kenning that there's sin in ane ye like weel, or fearing that there's sin, in ane whose purity is the last hope o' your heart, that's the king o' a' griefs. But, mind, ye mauna say a word of this ower again. I never tell't onybody before now, and I would like ill to add a trouble to a sair heart. Mind, ye mauna mention this again." "Yonder's my uncle!" exclaimed Bessie, whom this grave episode had wearied mightily, "and Jamie, and Michael, and Tam. We've twa good hours yet, Jacky, before, ye need to gang hame, and Miss Anne winna be angry if you're a thocht late. We'll gang and let ye see the Fairy Well--it's at the ither end o' the wood. Eh, woman, ye dinna ken how bonnie it is!" But Jacky had no heart for the Fairy Well, or the rude gallantry of Tam, and Michael, and Jamie. She was too full of the great intelligence she had gathered for her mistress. She drew her own conclusions, quickly enough, if not very clearly, but she saw at once that Anne would think it of the highest importance. How she knew so much we cannot tell--she could not have told herself. These electric thrills of intuition, which put the elf into possession of the most secret and guarded desires and wishes of her superiors, were as much a mystery to herself as to others. There were various mysteries about her--not the least of these being the reason why the spirit of a knight errant, of as delicate honor, and heroic devotion, as ever adorned the brightest age of chivalry, should have been endued with the singular, and by no means elegantly formed garment, of this girl's dark elfin frame and humble place.