"You've been making your plans for long enough, and this is a part of them! It will blind some people, but it won't me. I've been watching, as well as you; for my heart bled to see the poor, ill-used, neglected, tortured thing pining away, day after day! But Heaven will judge you for this, and bring down punishment upon you! She knew it was coming: she shuddered, and talked of dying, and begged of me to be a mother to her poor little one, and I swore I would; and I will, poor humble servant as I am! But right makes me strong, while wrong makes you weak and a coward, so that you are afraid, and obliged to listen to me. I'm not afraid of your fierce looks, for it shall all out, if I go to the magistrates myself. Hunting round, looking for her, you false, cruel traitor! Do you think you could deceive me? You listened for some purpose to the cruel lies of that wretch Gurdon, who ought to have had his tongue cut out; and now that you have planned and plotted, you think we are all cheated, but you are wrong. I don't care who hears me, I will speak, and I say it now. Look at him, McCray: you are a bold, honest man, before whom he cowers--this great baronet, with his title-- like a beaten hound! I tell you that for weeks past he has been trying to poison--" With an exclamation of rage Sir Murray rushed at her; but she never flinched. "To poison my dear lady!" exclaimed Jane. "Hush--hush! for Heaven's sake, hush, woman!" cried Sir Murray; and in an instant he had placed his hand over her mouth. But it was only for an instant; McCray had dragged him from her, as, reeling as she spoke, Jane gasped: "Keep him from me; his hands are yet red! I tell you, as I will tell the world, if I live, my lady is not lost, but murdered!" Book 1, Chapter XXXVII. SIR MURRAY DECLARES. "Send those people away from the door! Make her be silent; the woman's mad!" exclaimed Sir Murray excitedly, as, shrinking back, he stood, trembling and haggard, before McCray. "It's all nonsense--folly--that she has said. No; keep her here till those people have gone." "Ye'll be quiet noo, lassie, winna ye?" said McCray soothingly, as he held Jane in his arms, and then placed her in a chair, when the mad excitement that had kept her up so far seemed to desert her; and bowing down over the frightened child, she kissed and hushed it to sleep, sobbing over it hysterically, and every now and then breaking into a wail of misery. She took no further notice of her master, who gazed at her with an aspect of alarm, fearing, apparently, to speak, lest he might bring forth another such outbreak as the last. But he had no cause for fear; Jane was now tractable as a child, as McCray soon found; and going close to Sir Murray, he whispered: "That's an ower thick door, Sir Mooray, as I fun oot when I brak' it open. They didna hear what was said by the puir thing, half daft with grief; and gin ye'll trust me, I'll see that she doesna talk ony more sic stuff."