"After long suffering and great peril by sea and land, this poor woman reached Edinburgh, but failed to meet the father of the infant committed to her care; for then he was in arms with the men of the Covenant, hoping by any civil broil or commotion to repair the splendid patrimony his excesses had dissipated. Elspat, being unable to give a very coherent account of herself, was declared a nonconformist by the authorities, and thrown with thousands of others into the Greyfriars kirkyard, where in that inclement season she perished; but the child was found and protected by the soldiers of Dunbarton. That child is Walter Fenton; he is your son, Lord Clermistonlee! the child of your once loved Alison Gilford. I call upon Heaven to witness the truth of my assertion! His own name was Walter, (ah! can you have forgotten that?) his nurse's Fenton. _I saw her die_, and I alone knew the secret, and have treasured it till this hour--this hour of vengeance upon thee, thou false and wicked lord! In my wicked spirit of revenge too long have I kept the secret; but now this blameless and noble youth is doomed to death, and fain would I save him, for he is innocent, and good, and generous; in all things, oh, how much the reverse of thee!" "Maniac, thou liest!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, whose heart beat wildly. "I cannot believe this tale of a tub, which is told to affright me. And yet, how dare I reject it?--the ring--Walter--my God!" "Ha! has Beatrix the wronged, the scorned, the despised, the neglected Beatrix, wrung your heart at last? Fool! fool! Did'st thou never suspect the volcano that slumbered here?" she exclaimed, laying her hand upon her heart. "Did'st thou never perceive the flame that smouldered in my breast--the yearnings, the throbbings, the fierce longing to be adequately revenged on thee who had brought me to ruin and madness, and had abandoned me to penury and privation? Wretch! 'tis twenty-five years since ye betrayed me. Time has rolled on--time, that soothes all sorrows and softens every affliction, and teaches us to forget the wrongs of the living--yea, and the virtues of the dead; and perhaps to wonder why we hated one and loved the other,--time, I say, has rolled on to many miserable years, until I have become the hideous thing I am, but it never lessened one tithe of my longing for vengeance for the thousand taunts and contumelies that succeeded my first sacrifice for thee. You say I am mad--perhaps I am--but mark me--_a woman's sorrow passes like a summer cloudy but her vengeance endureth for ever!_" Clermistonlee smote his forehead, and Beatrix laughed like a hyæna.