In the evening, when Adam Hunter and Simon Frazer met, Margaret had just retired to bed, but not to sleep. Her mind was occupied with the thoughts of her situation. She had now become suspicious of Sir Willoughby's intentions. In her late interviews with him, he had been distant and shy; and he had even refused, on one occasion, to meet her, alleging, as an excuse, that he was engaged to go to an evening entertainment, to which it was ascertained he never went. He had, besides, endeavoured to get back from her the letter, which, in an unguarded moment, when intoxicated with love and wine, he had given to her. All these circumstances satisfied the unhappy maiden that she was about to become, or rather had already become, the dupe of a heartless villain. She now considered herself standing on the very verge of ruin; about to become, as Elspet Craig had foreboded, the victim of a passion insidiously introduced into her young heart; and left to the scorn of an unfeeling world, or the unavailing pity of a conceited and unfruitful philanthropy. These reflections were passing through her mind, when she heard Simon Frazer come into the house; for her bed was so situated that she could hear everything that occurred in the adjoining apartment. She soon ascertained the object of this late meeting of the two friends; and with feelings that shook her whole frame, she heard it fixed that, on the following evening, when Sir Willoughby was expected to go to an evening entertainment at the palace, Adam Hunter should gain the staircase window of Widow Hutchison, fire upon his enemy, and, upon seeing him fall, make his escape, along with his friend, by a back passage that led to the North Back of the Canongate. This resolved upon, the two friends parted. The agitation which the knowledge of this fierce and bloody purpose produced in the mind of Margaret, was proportioned to the love which she still bore to her seducer, and to the gentle character of the maiden, who shrunk from the very thought of violence. Her nerves had, moreover, been severely affected by the train of sorrowful thoughts which, at the moment when she heard the fatal resolution, were passing through her mind. But a new feeling soon arose. She was now called upon to act, and the urgency of the case requiring the most prompt communication to Sir Willoughby, assuaged, in some degree, her nervous excitement, by forcing her ideas into a train calculated to the contrivance of some method of meeting him in the morning.