When I told him of my guardian's death, of my utter loneliness, of my longing to be near him who stood nearer to me than all else in the world, I caught the murmur, "Poor child! poor child!" as he bent over his dipping paddle, and these low words of sympathy unsealed the last door of my heart, and I told him all without reserve: How Lady Jane had diverted her inheritance from her natural heir, Hugh, because he was withheld from writing to her by a sense of delicacy which would have been felt by few; how she had taken such offence at this during her illness that, unknown to me, she had altered her will in my favour, depriving him even of her former provision; how the same delicacy which had prevented him approaching his wealthy kinswoman separated him from me, her heir; how his first separation from Lady Jane had been a voluntary renunciation of his own interest, to ensure what he supposed would be my happiness; how he had, for my sake, performed a hundred sacrifices, which in happier days had been the delight of Lady Jane, his cousin; how all these things so worked on me that, knowing my love would neither speak nor come to me, I had thrown aside all other considerations save that I was bound to make restitution to one so unjustly wronged, and who had so suffered for my sake. For this I had broken through every barrier convention had set up, and, sure in his affection, I had come forth alone under an assumed name; "for I am no Madame de St. Just, mon pere, but Margaret Nairn, and he whom I love is Hugh Maxwell, in garrison at Louisbourg. "I know, mon pere, that many will point the finger of shame at me; will say I am without decorum and without pride. But, my father, I had been living without the love for which my soul had hungered all these years, until the want became so strong that it swept away all the petty rules of life and humbled my pride in the dust. I came because I could not stay, and now my one prayer is to find him." When I finished, he was silent for a long time. "My child," he said, at last, "that you have greatly dared, I need not tell you. But you know nothing of the pain, the misconstruction, the evil report to which you have exposed yourself.