ies after the
health of Miss Dunross.

In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days, but
for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James's answer. His
letter only reached me after an unusually long delay. For this, or
for some other reason that I cannot divine, I felt so strongly the
foreboding of bad news that I abstained from breaking the seal in my
mother's presence. I waited until I could retire to my own room, and
then I opened the letter. My presentiment had not deceived me.

Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The letter inclosed tells
its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot grieve for her; but I
can feel sorry for you."

The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the doctor at
Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words:

"The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which we
communicate with the mainland. I have only received your letter to-day.
With it, there has arrived a little box, containing a gold locket and
chain; being the present which you ask me to convey privately to Miss
Dunross, from a friend of yours whose name you are not at liberty to
mention.

"In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed me in a
position of extreme difficulty.

"The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of her
life--a life of such complicated and terrible suffering that death
comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance. Under these
melancholy circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame if I hesitate to
give her the locket in secret; not knowing with what associations this
keepsake may be connected, or of what serious agitation it may not
possibly be the cause.

"In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket, and
my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of the
remembrances which my unhappy patient may connect with the portrait. I
don't know whether it will give her pleasure or pain to receive it, in
her last moments on earth. I can only decide to take it with me, when
I see her to-morrow, and to let circumstances determine whether I shall
risk letting her see it or not. Our post to the South only leaves this
place in three days' time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know
the result.

"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My distress
of mind is great. But I will do my best to write intelligibly and fully
of what has happened.