“Be what it will,” answered Henry, contriving to make himself master of the hand that had escaped from him, but which was now again abandoned to his clasp, “be what it will, it is to me from this moment the most welcome incident of a weary life. To you, dearest Edith--forgive me, I should have said Miss Bellenden, but misfortune claims strange privileges--to you I have owed the few happy moments which have gilded a gloomy existence; and if I am now to lay it down, the recollection of this honour will be my happiness in the last hour of suffering.” “But is it even thus, Mr Morton?” said Miss Bellenden. “Have you, who used to mix so little in these unhappy feuds, become so suddenly and deeply implicated, that nothing short of”-- She paused, unable to bring out the word which should have come next. “Nothing short of my life, you would say?” replied Morton, in a calm, but melancholy tone; “I believe that will be entirely in the bosoms of my judges. My guards spoke of a possibility of exchanging the penalty for entry into foreign service. I thought I could have embraced the alternative; and yet, Miss Bellenden, since I have seen you once more, I feel that exile would be more galling than death.” “And is it then true,” said Edith, “that you have been so desperately rash as to entertain communication with any of those cruel wretches who assassinated the primate?” “I knew not even that such a crime had been committed,” replied Morton, “when I gave unhappily a night’s lodging and concealment to one of those rash and cruel men, the ancient friend and comrade of my father. But my ignorance will avail me little; for who, Miss Bellenden, save you, will believe it? And, what is worse, I am at least uncertain whether, even if I had known the crime, I could have brought my mind, under all the circumstances, to refuse a temporary refuge to the fugitive.” “And by whom,” said Edith, anxiously, “or under what authority, will the investigation of your conduct take place?” “Under that of Colonel Grahame of Claverhouse, I am given to understand,” said Morton; “one of the military commission, to whom it has pleased our king, our privy council, and our parliament, that used to be more tenacious of our liberties, to commit the sole charge of our goods and of our lives.” “To Claverhouse?” said Edith, faintly; “merciful Heaven, you are lost ere you are tried! He wrote to my grandmother that he was to be here to-morrow morning, on his road to the head of the county, where some desperate men, animated by the presence of two or three of the actors in the primate’s murder, are said to have assembled for the purpose of making a stand against the government. His expressions made me shudder, even when I could not guess that--that--a friend”--