The next morning, the mist was still falling thickly, in a dreary, drizzling, listless fashion, as if it never intended to leave off. Lally looked out of her sitting-room window, into the gloomy streets, and said: “I fear it was a foolish idea to come to Scotland, and so far north too, at this season. And yet I wanted to come.” “It was the best thing we could do,” said Mrs. Peters. “You were just pining to death in that great London house, Miss Lally.” “But if we had remained there, I might have seen Rufus again, perhaps,” said the girl regretfully. “How shocked he seemed to be at beholding me! He stared at me as at a ghost. I suppose he has long ago ceased to love me. He loves another now. And yet, Mrs. Peters, for the sake of the dear old days when I was all the world to him, he might have followed me to the carriage--he might have traced us home.” “I told him that you were a poor governess, Miss,” said Peters, who had not informed her young mistress of Rufus Black’s visit to Mount street, having conceived a cordial dislike to Lally’s young husband. “P’raps the young gentleman had to go back to his heiress that he is engaged to marry? Surely, Miss Lally, you wouldn’t take him back, and he engaged to another lady?” Lally’s brown cheek flushed, and a sudden light leaped to her black eyes. “Don’t ask me, Peters,” she said softly. “He was not so much to blame as you think. His father forced him to give me up. He’s only a boy, Peters, and this is his birthday. He is twenty-one to-day. How he used to talk of his birthday; quite as if he were a lord, and expected to come into a property upon this day. He was weak and cowardly, but you could see how he had suffered, Peters. He will marry this beautiful and grand young lady, a baronet’s daughter, and he’ll go to court, and his bride will worship him; while I--” She paused, sighing heavily. “While you marry some great man, and go to court also, Miss Lally,” said Peters. The girl shook her head sorrowfully. “He wrote that I am not his wife,” she said, “but if I am not his wife, I shall never be the wife of any one else. I thought I was truly his wife, Peters, and I loved him as such, and a woman cannot unlove where she has loved with her whole soul. I shall consider myself in my own heart as the wife of Rufus so long as I live. His grand young bride cannot love him as I love him--my poor wronged boy! He would have been true to me always if his father had let him alone.” Before Mrs. Peters could reply there was a knock on the door, and Toppen, Lally’s London footman, entered, his hat in his hand.