I followed the old man in silence. He led the way into a field. We climbed over some loose stones thrown together, to serve as a wall of division at the farther extremity of it, and slowly began to ascend the grassy acclivity, which was on both sides bordered by a thick hedge, placed apart, at the distance of about thirty feet. When half way up, I could not resist the inclination I felt to turn and look upon the scene. It was an evening as fair as I had ever gazed on. The wheat was springing in the field through which we had just passed, covering it, as it were, with a rich green carpet. Trees and hills bounded the view, behind which the sun was on the point of sinking, and the red streaks upon the western sky "gave promise of a goodly day to-morrow." If, thought I, the hour on which Clara Douglas ascended this hill was as lovely as this evening, she must indeed have been deeply bent upon her own destruction, to look upon the world so beautifully fair, and not wish to return to it again. We continued our ascent, passing among thick tangled underwood, in whose kindly grasp the light flowing garments of Clara Douglas must have been ever and anon caught as she wended on her way. Yet had she disregarded the friendly interposition. Along the margin of an old stone quarry we now proceeded, where the pathway was so narrow that we were occasionally compelled to catch at the furze bushes which edged it, to prevent ourselves from falling over into the gulf beneath. And Clara Douglas, thought I, must have passed along here, and must have been exposed to the same danger of toppling headlong over the cliff, yet she had exerted herself to pass the fatal spot unharmed, to save a life which she knew would almost the instant afterwards be taken by her own hand. Such is the inconsistency of human nature. Our course lay once more through the midst of underwood, so thickly grown that one would have supposed no female foot would dare to enter it. "Here," cried the old man, stopping beside a dwarfish fir-tree, "here is the spot where we found the mortal remains of Clara Douglas." I pressed forward, and, to my surprise, beheld one other being than my old guide looking on the place. It was the same I had noticed at the grave of Clara Douglas, within the walls of the ruined church of Altonby. I thought it a strange coincidence.