'But I owe you equal frankness, Mr. Falconer. There is no barrier between Major Moray and myself but the foolish--no, wicked--indiscretion of an otherwise innocent and ignorant girl. Listen, Mr. Falconer: under the necessity of the circumstances you will not misjudge me if I compel myself to speak calmly. This, I trust, will be my final penance. I thought Lord Rothie was going to marry me. To do him justice, he never said so. Make what excuse for my folly you can. I was lost in a mist of vain imaginations. I had had no mother to teach me anything, Mr. Falconer, and my father never suspected the necessity of teaching me anything. I was very ill on the passage to Antwerp, and when I began to recover a little, I found myself beginning to doubt both my own conduct and his lordship's intentions. Possibly the fact that he was not quite so kind to me in my illness as I had expected, and that I felt hurt in consequence, aided the doubt. Then the thought of my father returning and finding that I had left him, came and burned in my heart like fire. But what was I to do? I had never been out of Aberdeen before. I did not know even a word of French. I was altogether in Lord Rothie's power. I thought I loved him, but it was not much of love that sea-sickness could get the better of. With a heart full of despair I went on shore. The captain slipped a note into my hand. I put it in my pocket, but pulled it out with my handkerchief in the street. Lord Rothie picked it up. I begged him to give it me, but he read it, and then tore it in pieces. I entered the hotel, as wretched as girl could well be. I began to dislike him. But during dinner he was so kind and attentive that I tried to persuade myself that my fears were fanciful. After dinner he took me out. On the stairs we met a lady whose speech was Scotch. Her maid called her Lady Janet. She looked kindly at me as I passed. I thought she could read my face. I remembered afterwards that Lord Rothie turned his head away when we met her. We went into the cathedral. We were standing under that curious dome, and I was looking up at its strange lights, when down came a rain of bell-notes on the roof over my head. Before the first tune was over, I seemed to expect the second, and then the third, without thinking how I could know what was coming; but when they ended with the ballad of the Witch Lady, and I lifted up my head and saw that I was not by my father's fireside, but in Antwerp Cathedral with Lord Rothie, despair filled me with a half-insane resolution. Happily Lord Rothie was at some little distance talking to a priest about one of Rubens's pictures. I slipped unseen behind the nearest pillar, and then flew from the church. How I got to the hotel I do not know, but I did reach it. 'Lady Janet,' was all I could say. The waiter knew the name, and led me to her room. I threw myself on my knees, and begged her to save me. She assured me no one should touch me. I gasped 'Lord Rothie,' and fainted.