Yet ever the words came from his quivering lips--"Am I fated to be the husband of Devil Isobel? Is Sweet Marjory destined to bless the nuptial bed of another?" And at every repetition he unconsciously drove the spur into the sides of his now foaming steed. But whither all this hot haste--whither was he flying? To his home, where he knew that his mother condemned his choice, though her delicacy had limited her dissatisfaction to that strange but pregnant expression, whereby she had sent her most valuable jewel to her whom she valued and loved, and whom, in the madness of fascination, he had left to sorrow, if not to heartbreaking--perhaps death. He felt that he behoved to be home to make certain preparations for his appearance on the morrow, as a bridegroom by the side of Isobel Bower; and yet he felt that he could not face his mother under the feelings which now ruled him, and the very weakness of his resolution prompted the device of tarrying by the way until she should have gone to bed. He knew where to watch her chamber light, and he began to draw the rein. Yet how unconscious he was of a peculiarity of that power that had been for some time working within him!--yea, even remorse, who, true to her unfailing purpose, was moulding his heart into that yearning to visit the victim on which she insists for ever as a condition of peace to the betrayer. He had come to the cross-road leading eastwards; and even while muttering his purpose of merely prolonging the period of his home-going, he was twitching the rein to the right, so that the obedient steed turned and carried him forward at the old speed. Whither now, versatile and remorseful youth? From this eastern road there goes off, a couple of miles forward, a rough track, leading to the mansion he had so recently left. And it was not long ere he reached the point of turn. Nor was he even decided when there, that he would again draw the rein to the right. But if he was master of his horse, he was not master of himself: the rough track was taken, and Ogilvy was in full swing to Bell's Tower. He did not know that it is only when the act is accomplished that one thinks of the decrees of Fate, though it is true that the purposes of man are equally fated in their beginnings, when reason is battling against feeling, as in their termination. In how short time was he in the pine wood, behind the house, where were his bane, and perhaps his antidote, though he could not divine the latter! And he trembled as through the trees he saw the flitting lights, as they came and went past the windows, indicating the joy of preparation: not for these he looked, only for one, sombre and steady, like Melancholy's dull eye, wherein no tear glistens. Leaving his horse tied to a pine stem, Ogilvy was in an instant kneeling at the low casement at the foot of the bastle house, where glimmered that light for which he had been so intensely looking.