It was now my turn to apologise and explain. She listened, with many pleas of palliation for the indignities I had endured, to my account of my business in Ireland, and the circumstances which had led me to Glen----; but when I came to account for my appearance at Moyabel, her confusion satisfied me that the motive was already known. I felt suddenly conscious of having been dreaming about her; and I knew that a fevered man's dream is his nurse's perquisite: dissimulation, after what I knew and suspected to have passed, would have been as impossible as repugnant. So then and there, among that mellow sunset in the sick chamber, I confessed to her how my whole thoughts had been haunted by her image, since the time when her father had hurried her from the scene of our meeting; how I could not rest while any scheme, how wild soever, promised me even a chance of again beholding her; how this had induced me to snatch at the first opportunity of discovering her, and had brought on that disastrous adventure which had ended in my wound; but that I still endured another, which I feared would prove incurable, if I might not live upon the hope (and I took her hand) of gaining her to be my heart's physician constantly. Footsteps suddenly sounded in the passage. I released her hand, and she hid her confusion, in a hasty escape through a side-door, just before her father made his appearance at that of the hall. He advanced with a frank expression of pleasure and concern; took his seat by my bedside; congratulated me on the favourable issue of my illness, and repeated those apologies and explanations which his daughter had already made; adding that his first intention had been to detain me prisoner, so that I could have no opportunity of betraying them until their departure for France; but that the moment he had heard my undisguised ravings, he perceived the injustice of which he had been guilty; that Aleck's speech having returned soon after, (for the poor fellow was so beaten that he could not say a word for three days--but I have taken good care of him), another evidence, however unnecessary, was afforded by his declaration; and that, therefore, a messenger was immediately despatched to Knowehead, with private letters, explaining our situation and its causes, and resting on the honour of my friend for the security of all. The trust had been well reposed: Aleck, who was able to go home in a few days, had come the night before (although returned that morning) with the intelligence of the real spy having applied for information to the old gentleman; but that, loyal subject and zealous Protestant as he was, he had given him no more than a civil indication of his door. All this he told with a gratified and grateful air, and left me to a night of happy dreams.