"No; my heart is filled wi' a grief which nane on earth can lessen; and it is a sad change that has come owre me, when I can hae a sorrow which ye canna ken, and though ye kenned it, couldna relieve. Yet sae it is: yer puir Mary is nae langer what she was, and may never be what she was again. The flowers o' Arthur's Seat hae lost their colours and their scents--the bluebells o' the Hunter's Bog ring nae mair peals--and the water o' St Anthony's spring is drumly and dark, as it is when the spirit o' the storms sits on the tap o' the 'Lion's Head.' 'Waly, waly,' is now my sang, the joys o' a bricht morning hae fa'en to the bottom, like the lees o' a vessel o' wine; and I maun drink thae lees, bitter as they may be; for Heaven has said the word, and Mary Glenday is obedient to its behests." The high-toned determination of the maiden satisfied John that it would be vain to press a suit at present, which was so clearly interdicted by some hidden circumstance. What that could be was a subject of intense interest and curiosity; but, though he thought of it daily and nightly, he could not even approach the mysterious reason which could change a human being so entirely, as to make a light-laughing maiden, high in the hope of being married, a sorrowful and sentimental woman, giving grave injunctions that her intended nuptials should not be broached in her presence. At times John thought that her mind was tinged with a superstitious melancholy, arising from some presentiment that, as their marriage was interrupted in such an awful manner, Heaven had set its decree against it. This opinion deserved weight, from the circumstance that the condition attached by Mary to their union still taking place was the discovery of the author of the murder; but even that condition was itself qualified, as if it depended upon the nature of that discovery whether she would consent to become a wife. The whole matter appeared a mystery, and John could make nothing of it.