But it was decreed that Goose-Gibbie's intermediation, whether as an emissary or as a man-at-arms, should be unfortunate to the family of Tillietudlem. He unluckily tarried so long at the ale-house to prove if his employer's coin was good that, when he appeared at Fairy Knowe, the little sense which nature had given him was effectually drowned in ale and brandy; and instead of asking for Lord Evandale, he demanded to speak with Lady Margaret, whose name was more familiar to his ear. Being refused admittance to her presence, he staggered away with the letter undelivered, perversely faithful to Morton's instructions in the only point in which it would have been well had he departed from them. A few minutes after he was gone, Edith entered the apartment. Lord Evandale and she met with mutual embarrassment, which Lady Margaret, who only knew in general that their union had been postponed by her granddaughter's indisposition, set down to the bashfulness of a bride and bridegroom, and, to place them at ease, began to talk to Lady Emily on indifferent topics. At this moment Edith, with a countenance as pale as death, muttered, rather than whispered, to Lord Evandale a request to speak with him. He offered his arm, and supported her into the small ante-room, which, as we have noticed before, opened from the parlour. He placed her in a chair, and, taking one himself, awaited the opening of the conversation. "I am distressed, my lord," were the first words she was able to articulate, and those with difficulty; "I scarce know what I would say, nor how to speak it." "If I have any share in occasioning your uneasiness," said Lord Evandale, mildly, "you will soon, Edith, be released from it." "You are determined then, my lord," she replied, "to run this desperate course with desperate men, in spite of your own better reason, in spite of your friends' entreaties, in spite of the almost inevitable ruin which yawns before you?" "Forgive me, Miss Bellenden; even your solicitude on my account must not detain me when my honour calls. My horses stand ready saddled, my servants are prepared, the signal for rising will be given so soon as I reach Kilsyth. If it is my fate that calls me, I will not shun meeting it. It will be something," he said, taking her hand, "to die deserving your compassion, since I cannot gain your love." "Oh, my lord, remain!" said Edith, in a tone which went to his heart; "time may explain the strange circumstance which has shocked me so much; my agitated nerves may recover their tranquillity. Oh, do not rush on death and ruin! remain to be our prop and stay, and hope everything from time!"