Jean that morning
that he must leave. His little escort of troopers were saddling their
horses, and in half an hour they would be on the road, the dreary,
hopeless road it was his fate to be ever travelling. Jean and he were
saying their last words before this new adventure, for they both knew
that every departure might be the final parting. They were standing at
the door, and nothing could be grayer than their outlook. For a haar
had come up from the sea, as is common on the east coast, and the cold
and dripping mist blotted out the seascape; it hid the town of Dundee,
which lay below Dudhope, and enveloped the castle in its cold
garments, like a shroud, and chilled Graham and his wife to the very
bone.

"Ye will acknowledge, John, that I have never hindered you when the
call came." As she spoke Jean took his flowing hair in her hand, and
he had never seen her so gentle before, for indeed she could not be
called a soft or tender woman.

"Ye told me what would be the way of life for us, and it has been what
ye said, and I have not complained. But this day I wish to God that ye
could have stayed, for when my hour comes, and it is not far off, ye
ken I will miss you sairly. Other women have their mothers with them
in that strait, but for me there is none; naebody but strangers. If
ony evil befall thee, John, it will go ill with me, and I have in my
keeping the hope of your house. Can ye no bide quietly here with me
and let them that have the power do as they will in Edinburgh? No man
of your own party has ever thanked you for anything ye did, and if my
mother's people do their will by you, I shall surely die and the child
with me. And that will be the end of the House of Dundee. Must ye go
and leave me?" And now her arm was round him, and with the other hand
she caressed his face, while her warm bosom pressed against his cold,
hard cuirass.

"Queensberry, for the liar he always was, said ye would be my Delilah,
Jean, but that I knew was not in you," said Dundee, smiling sadly and
stroking the proud head, which he had never seen bowed before.

"You are, I believe in my soul, the bravest woman in Scotland, and I
wish to God the men on our side had only had the heart of my Lady
Dundee. With a hundred men and your spirit in them, Jean, we had
driven William of Orange into the sea, or, at the worst, we should
certainly save Scotland for the king. Well and bravely have ye stood
by me since our marriage day, and if I had ev