"Witch, quotha!" replied Beatrix, whose withered cheek began to redden with passion. "Lilian Napier, there was a time when these grey grizzled locks were once as bright and as glossy as thine; when this brow was as smooth, this faded form as round, yea, and as beautiful; this step as light, and this poor face as fair, as thine now are. So beware thee of taunts, maiden; for the time is coming (if thou art spared) when thou mayest be loathsome as I now am, and loathing as I now do. That hour is coming; for Clermistonlee hath an evil eye, beneath whose baleful influence all that is good and beautiful in woman will wither and die. Oh! Lilian Napier, what a tale of love and weakness, shame and misery, sin and horror, would the history of my life reveal! But my hour of revenge is coming. Yes----" Again three knocks louder than before rang on the almery; and Beatrix, trembling, ceased to talk, and busied herself in laying a supper on the hall-table. "Oh, Walter! Walter!" murmured Lilian, "if you knew of this--if you were here to protect me!" Her tears flowed freely. "Walter!" reiterated Beatrix musing; "can it really be the same? No, it is impossible; and yet, why not?--He is your lover, then, this Walter?" she asked in a low voice, while laying some cold grilled meat, confections, and wine from a buffet. "I know he is--that blush tells me (when did my cheek blush last?) He is young and handsome, I warrant?" Lilian nodded an affirmative. "And men say he is brave?" "Oh, yes! brave as a hero of romance," said Lilian in the same low tone; for there is nothing so pleasing to love as to hear the object of it praised. "And so noble--so generous! If true worth gave a title, my dear Walter would be a belted Earl." "Instead of being a poor standard-bearer in the ranks of Dunbarton." "You have seen him then?" said Lilian, her blue eyes beaming, as she almost forgot her present predicament in the thought of her lover. "Is he not handsome, good woman?" "It is the same!" exclaimed Beatrix, in her shrillest tone. "Walter, the powder-boy--the soldier's brat--hah!"--she ground her teeth, and clenched her shrivelled hands like knots of serpents--"I bide my time. Oh, I will be fearfully avenged!" A third time there was a knocking on the almery, and Beatrix muttered-- "I am dumb--I will speak no more." She pointed to the supper-table, and, throwing herself into a chair, fixed her sunken eyes upon the red glowing fire, and, lost in her own wild thoughts, continued to jabber with the rapidity and restlessness of insanity. It was evident that she was partly deranged,--a discovery which, while it raised the pity of the gentle Lilian, increased the dread and the horror of her situation.