eble mind is necessarily an irritable one, and the suspense
which some bear with constitutional indifference or philosophical
resignation, and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best,
was intolerable to Lady Forester, at once solitary and sensitive,
low-spirited, and devoid of strength of mind, whether natural or
acquired.

CHAPTER II.

As she received no further news of Sir Philip, whether directly or
indirectly, his unfortunate lady began now to feel a sort of consolation
even in those careless habits which had so often given her pain. "He is
so thoughtless," she repeated a hundred times a day to her sister,
"he never writes when things are going on smoothly. It is his way. Had
anything happened, he would have informed us."

Lady Bothwell listened to her sister without attempting to console her.
Probably she might be of opinion that even the worst intelligence which
could be received from Flanders might not be without some touch of
consolation; and that the Dowager Lady Forester, if so she was doomed to
be called, might have a source of happiness unknown to the wife of the
gayest and finest gentleman in Scotland. This conviction became stronger
as they learned from inquiries made at headquarters that Sir Philip was
no longer with the army--though whether he had been taken or slain in
some of those skirmishes which were perpetually occurring, and in which
he loved to distinguish himself, or whether he had, for some unknown
reason or capricious change of mind, voluntarily left the service,
none of his countrymen in the camp of the Allies could form even a
conjecture. Meantime his creditors at home became clamorous, entered
into possession of his property, and threatened his person, should he
be rash enough to return to Scotland. These additional disadvantages
aggravated Lady Bothwell's displeasure against the fugitive husband;
while her sister saw nothing in any of them, save what tended to
increase her grief for the absence of him whom her imagination now
represented--as it had before marriage--gallant, gay, and affectionate.

About this period there appeared in Edinburgh a man of singular
appearance and pretensions. He was commonly called the Paduan Doctor,
from having received his education at that famous university. He was
supposed to possess some rare receipts in medicine, with which, it was
affirmed, he had wrought remarkable cures. But though, on the one hand,
the physicians of Edinburgh term