The young man had gone back to Inverness upon the previous night, but he had not been content to accept his dismissal at the hands of Mrs. Peters. His old love for Lally was strong and fierce, and he was determined to win back his lost young wife, if energy and patience and love and sincere repentance could win her back. So, after a sleepless night, and a morning spent in indecision and irresolution, he had come out again to Heather Hills. Mrs. Peters was in her own room, and the housemaid had answered his knock. Rufus had inquired for Miss Bird, but the housemaid had never heard the name. He then asked for Mrs. Black. That name was also unknown at Heather Hills. In this dilemma, believing Lally to be at the Hills, as a companion to Miss Wroat, and believing her to have taken a new name as a disguise, he boldly asked for Miss Wroat, determined to see Lally’s supposed employer, and to entreat her to intercede in his behalf with Lally. The housemaid had told him that Miss Wroat had gone out for a walk, indicating the direction, and calling up all his courage, Rufus had started in pursuit. He saw the dark and slender figure perched on the peaks while yet afar off. Something in its droop reminded him of Lally, and he came on at a swinging pace, his eager gaze never swerving from her; and as he came nearer and yet nearer, the conviction stole upon him that it was Lally at whom he looked. “She must have come out with Miss Wroat,” he thought. “Rich ladies never walk without an attendant. She has dropped behind, being tired. It is Lally! it is--it is!” He came up swiftly, the damp soil deadening the sound of his footsteps. He gained the rocks, and began to climb them to Lally’s side, but the girl did not stir, nor notice his approach. A sudden sound at her side at last startled her. With a quick exclamation, she turned her head--and beheld him! She did not speak, but her great black eyes grew larger, and her face grew suddenly so deathly white that he thought she must be fainting. “Lally! O Lally!” he cried to her, in an anguished, broken voice. “Thank God! I have found you! Oh, my darling, my little wife, whom I have mourned as dead!” He knelt down before her, in the shadow of a projecting rock, the tears streaming over his face, and his eyes regarding her in wild imploring. So a devotee might have knelt to his patron saint, feeling unworthy to approach her, but longing and praying with his whole soul for forgiveness and mercy. Lally felt her soul melt within her. “Oh, Rufus!” she gasped, in a choking whisper. He put up his arms to enfold her. She shrank back, not with loathing, but with a sudden dignity, a sort of majesty, that awed him. “You must not touch me, Rufus,” she commanded. “I am not your wife--” “You are! You are! Before God, I declare that you are my wife--” “Hush, Rufus! You wrote to me that I was not your wife. Don’t you remember? You said that our marriage was ‘null and void.’”