The house and lands of Balconie, a beautiful Highland property, lie within a few miles of the chasm. There is a tradition that, about two centuries ago, the proprietor was married to a lady of very retired habits; who, though little known beyond her narrow circle of acquaintance, was regarded within that circle with a feeling of mingled fear and respect. She was singularly reserved, and it was said spent more of her waking hours in solitary rambles on the banks of the Auldgrande, in places where no one else would choose to be alone, than in the house of Balconie. Of a sudden, however, she became more social, and seemed desirous to attach to herself, by acts of kindness and confidence, one of her own maids, a simple Highland girl; but there hung a mysterious wildness about her--a sort of atmosphere of dread and suspicion--which the change had not removed; and her new companion always felt oppressed, when left alone with her, by a strange sinking of the vital powers--a shrinking apparently of the very heart--as if she were in the presence of a creature of another world. And after spending with her, on one occasion, a whole day, in which she had been more than usually agitated by this feeling, and her ill-mated companion more than ordinarily silent and melancholy, she accompanied her at her bidding, as the evening was coming on, to the banks of the Auldgrande. They reached the chasm just as the sun was sinking beneath the hill, and flinging his last gleam on the topmost boughs of the birches and hazels which then, as now, formed a screen over the opening. All beneath was dark as midnight. “Let us approach nearer the edge,” said the lady, speaking for the first time since she had quitted the house. “Not nearer, ma’am,” said the terrified girl; “the sun is almost set, and strange sights have been seen in the _gully_ after nightfall.” “Pshaw,” said the lady, “how can you believe such stories? Come, I will show you a path which leads to the water: it is one of the finest places in the world; I have seen it a thousand times, and must see it again to-night. Come,” she continued, grasping her by the arm, “I desire it much, and so down we must go.” “No, lady!” exclaimed the terrified girl, struggling to extricate herself, and not more startled by the proposal than by the almost fiendish expression of mingled anger and fear which now shaded the features of her mistress, “I shall swoon with terror and fall over.” “Nay, wretch, there is no escape!” replied the lady, in a voice heightened almost to a scream, as, with a strength that contrasted portentously with her delicate form, she dragged her, despite of her exertions, towards the chasm. “Suffer me, ma’am, to accompany you,” said a strong masculine voice from behind; “your surety, you may remember, must be a willing one.” A dark-looking man, in green, stood beside them; and the lady, quitting her grasp with an expression of passive despair, suffered the stranger to lead her towards the chasm.