t her remark was an unfortunate
one. "Well," she said rather lamely, "because my absence will relieve
her of the responsibility of acting as chaperon."

What else could she say? How could she tell her father--the kindly but
afflicted man to whom she was devoted--the bitter truth? His lonely,
dismal life was surely sufficiently hard to bear without the extra
burden of suspicion, of enforced inactivity, of fierce hatred, and of
bitter regret. So she slowly disengaged her hand, kissed him again, and
with an excuse that she had the menus to write for the dinner-table,
went out, leaving him alone.

When the door had closed a great sigh sounded through the long,
book-lined room, a sigh that ended in a sob.

The old man had leaned his chin upon his hands, and his sightless eyes
were filled with tears. "Is it the truth?" he murmured to himself. "Is
it really the truth?"

CHAPTER II

FROM OUT THE NIGHT

There are few of the Perthshire castles that more plainly declare their
feudal origin and exhibit traces of obsolete power than does the great
gaunt pile of ruins known as Glencardine. Its situation is both
picturesque and imposing, and the stern aspect of the two square
baronial towers which face the south, perched on a sheer precipice that
descends to the Ruthven Water deep below, shows that the castle was once
the residence of a predatory chief in the days before its association
with the great Montrose.

Two miles from the long, straggling village of Auchterarder, in the
centre of a fine, well-wooded, well-kept estate, the great ruined castle
stands a silent monument of warlike days long since forgotten. There,
within those walls, now overgrown with ivy and weeds, and where big
trees grow in the centre of what was once the great paved courtyard,
Montrose schemed and plotted, and, according to tradition, kept certain
of his enemies in the dungeons below.

In the twelfth century the aspect of the deep glen was very different
from what it is to-day. In those days the Ruthven was a broad river,
flowing swiftly down to the Earn, and forming, by reason of a moat, an
effective barrier against attack. To-day, however, the river has
diminished into a mere burn meandering through a beautiful wooded glen
three hundred feet below, a glen the charms of which are well known
throughout the whole of Scotland, and where in summer tourists from
England endeavour to explore, but are warned back by Stewart, Sir
Henry's Highland kee