Margaret promised to keep the secret, never evincing the slightest curiosity to know who the lady was, and it is said she had reached her twentieth year when one day the adventure of her childhood was explained. It seems that the lady in question was a Mrs. Macfarlane, daughter of Colonel Charles Straiton, a zealous Jacobite. When about nineteen years old she married John Macfarlane--law agent of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat--who was many years her senior. Soon after her marriage Mrs. Macfarlane made the acquaintance of Captain John Cayley, a commissioner of Customs, and on September 29th, 1716, he called on her at Edinburgh, when, for reasons only known to herself or him, she fired two shots at him with a pistol, one of which pierced his heart. According to Sir Bernard Burke, it was when she would not yield to Captain Cayley's immoral overtures that the latter vowed to blacken her character, a threat which he so successfully carried out "that not one of her female acquaintances upon whom she called would admit her; not one of all she met in the street would acknowledge her." Desperate at this villainy on his part, Mrs. Macfarlane, under pretence of agreeing to Captain Cayley's overtures, sent for him, when fully confident that he was about to reap the fruit of his infamous daring he obeyed her summons. But no sooner had he entered the room than she locked the door, and, snatching up a brace of pistols, she exclaimed: "Wretch, you have blasted the reputation of a woman who never did you the slightest wrong. You have fixed an indelible stain upon the child at her bosom; and all this because, coward as you are, you thought there was no one to take her part." At the same time, it is said, she fired two shots at him with a pistol, one of which pierced his heart. Her husband asserted, however, that she fired to save herself from outrage, an explanation which she affirmed was "only too true." Her husband also declared that his wife was desirous of sending for a magistrate and of telling him the whole story, but that he advised her against it. But not appearing to stand her trial in the ensuing February, she was outlawed, and obtained refuge in the mansion house of the Swinton family in the concealed apartment already described.[32] According to Sir Walter Scott, she "returned and lived and died in Edinbugh"; but her life must have been comparatively short, as her husband married again on October 6th, 1719. Akin to this dramatic episode may be mentioned one concerning Robert Perceval, the second son of the Right Hon. Sir John Perceval, when reading for the law in his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. The clock had just struck the hour of midnight, when, on looking up from his book, he was astonished to see a figure standing between himself and the door, completely muffled up in a long cloak so as to defy recognition. "Who are you?" But the figure made no answer. "What do you want?" No reply.