Such was the dreary impulse in his mind--an impulse which everyone must have felt who has borne the desertion of friends, the real or supposed failure of love and honour--and which here and there one in the chill heart-sickening pride of despair has given way to, disappearing out of life sometimes, sometimes out of all reach of friends. But Edgar was not the kind of man to break off his thread of life thus abruptly. He had duties even now to hold him fast--a duty to Clare, who, only a few hours ago (or was it years), had called him--bless her!--her true brother, her dearest brother. If he were to be tortured like an Indian at the stake, he would not abandon her till all was done for her that brother could do. And he had a duty even to the man whom he had just left, to remove all obstacles out of his way, to make perfectly plain and clear his title to Arden. His insolence cannot harm me, Edgar reflected, with a smile which was hard enough to maintain. And then there were his own people, his new family, his mother’s mother. Poor Edgar! that last reflection went through and through him with a great pang. He could not make out how it was. He had had so kind, so tender a feeling towards her, and now it seemed to him that he shrunk from her very name. Was his name, too, the same as theirs? Did he belong to them absolutely, to their condition, to their manner of life? If it were so, none in the outer world should see him shrink from them; but at this moment, in his retirement, the thought that they were his, and they only, was bitter to Edgar. He could not face it. It was not pride, nor contempt of their poverty, nor dislike to themselves; but yet the thought that they were his family--that he belonged to them--was a horror to him. Should he go back with them to their Highland cottage?--should he go and desert them, as if he were ashamed? In the profound revulsion of his heart he grew sick and faint with the thought. And thus the night passed--in wonder and excitement, in fear and trembling of many kinds. When the morning came, Jeanie opened her soft eyes and smiled upon the watchers round her, over all of whom was a cloud which no one understood. “I’ve been in yon awful valley, but I’m come back,” she said, with her pale lips. She had come back; but ah how many hopes and pleasant dreams and schemes of existence had gone into the dark valley instead of Jeanie! The old mother, who had seen so many die, and gone through a hundred heartbreaks, bent over the one who had come back from the grave, and kissed her sadly, with a passion of mingled feelings to which she could give no outlet. “But oh, my bonnie lad!” she said under her breath with a sigh which was almost a groan. She had seen into his heart, though he did not know it. She had perceived, with a poignant sting of pain, one momentary instinctive shrinking on his part. She understood all, in her large human nature and boundless sympathy, and her heart bled, but she said never a word.