The consternation was inexpressible. The people, supposing her drowned, took her for a ghost, though there was no ghostly calm about her; but her eyes were swollen, her hair disordered, her lips quivering with violent emotion. There was a solemnity about her, too; for extreme anguish is always solemn, in proportion as it approaches to despair. She rushed to the front of the pulpit, and held out her hands, exclaiming aloud to Mr Ruthven that she was the most persecuted and tormented of human beings; that she appealed to him against her persecutors; and if he did not see her righted, she warned him that he would be damned deeper than hell. Mrs Ruthven shuddered, and left her seat to place herself by her husband. And now she encountered the poor lady's gaze, and, moreover, had her own grasped as it had never been before. "Are these children yours?" she was asked. "Yes," faltered Mrs Ruthven. "Then you must help me to recover mine. Had you ever,"--and here she turned to the pastor--"had you ever an enemy?" Her voice turned hoarse as she uttered the word. "No--yes--Oh, yes!" said he. "I have had enemies, as every man has." "Then, as you wish them abased and tormented, you must help me to abase and torment mine--my husband, and Lord Lovat--" "Lord Lovat!" repeated many wondering voices. "And Sir Alexander Macdonald; and his tenant of this place; and--" As Mr Ruthven looked round him, perplexed and amazed, one of Macdonald's people went up to him, and whispered into his ear that this lady had come from some place above or below, for she was drowned last week. Mr Ruthven half smiled. "I will know," cried the lady, "what that fellow said. I will hear what my enemies tell you against me. My only hope is in you. I am stolen from Edinburgh; they pretended to bury me there--Eh? what?" she cried, as another man whispered something into the pastor's other ear. "Mad! There! I heard it. I heard him say I was mad. Did he not tell you I was mad?" "He did; and one cannot--really I cannot--" As he looked round again in his perplexity, the widow rose from her seat, and said, "I know this lady; my son and I know her better than anyone else in the island does; and we should say that she is not mad." "_Not_ mad!" Mr Ruthven said, with a mingling of surprise in his tone which did not escape the jealous ear of Lady Carse. "Not mad, sir; but grievously oppressed. If you could quietly hear the story, sir, at a fitting time--" "Ay, ay; that will be best," declared Mr Ruthven. "Let me go home with you," said Lady Carse. "I will go home with you; and--" Mrs Ruthven exchanged a glance with her husband, and then said, in an embarrassed way, while giving a hand to each of the two children who were clinging to her, that their house was very small, extremely small indeed, with too little room for the children, and none whatever left over.