ose to the place of rendezvous? These anxious reflections did
not prevent her approaching to the cairn with a pace that, though slow,
was determined.

When she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a figure rose
suddenly up from behind it, and Jeanie scarce forbore to scream aloud at
what seemed the realisation of the most frightful of her anticipations.
She constrained herself to silence, however, and, making a dead pause,
suffered the figure to open the conversation, which he did, by asking, in
a voice which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, "Are you the
sister of that ill-fated young woman?"

"I am--I am the sister of Effie Deans!" exclaimed Jeanie. "And as ever
you hope God will hear you at your need, tell me, if you can tell, what
can be done to save her!"

"I do _not_ hope God will hear me at my need," was the singular answer.
"I do not deserve--I do not expect he will." This desperate language he
uttered in a tone calmer than that with which he had at first spoken,
probably because the shook of first addressing her was what he felt most
difficult to overcome. Jeanie remained mute with horror to hear language
expressed so utterly foreign to all which she had ever been acquainted
with, that it sounded in her ears rather like that of a fiend than of a
human being. The stranger pursued his address to her, without seeming to
notice her surprise. "You see before you a wretch, predestined to evil
here and hereafter."

"For the sake of Heaven, that hears and sees us," said Jeanie, "dinna
speak in this desperate fashion! The gospel is sent to the chief of
sinners--to the most miserable among the miserable."

"Then should I have my own share therein," said the stranger, "if you
call it sinful to have been the destruction of the mother that bore
me--of the friend that loved me--of the woman that trusted me--of the
innocent child that was born to me. If to have done all this is to be a
sinner, and survive it is to be miserable, then am I most guilty and most
miserable indeed."

"Then you are the wicked cause of my sister's ruin?" said Jeanie, with a
natural touch of indignation expressed in her tone of voice.

"Curse me for it, if you will," said the stranger; "I have well deserved
it at your hand."

"It is fitter for me," said Jeanie, "to pray to God to forgive you."

"Do as you will, how you will, or what you will," he replied, with
vehemence; "only promise to obey my directions, and save your sister