.

"The gifts of God are without repentance," said Donal.

"I have heard of you!" returned the clergyman. "You are one, they tell
me, given to misusing scripture."

He had conceived a painful doubt that he had been drawn into some plot!

"Sir!" said Donal sternly, "if you saw any impropriety in the ceremony,
why did you perform it? I beg you will now reserve your remarks. You
ought to have made them before or not at all. If you be silent, the
thing will probably never be heard of, and I should greatly dislike
having it the town-talk."

"Except I see reason--that is, if nothing follow to render disclosure
necessary, I shall be silent," said the minister.

He would have declined the fee offered by Donal; but he was poor, and
its amount prevailed: he accepted it, and took his leave with a
stiffness he intended for dignity: he had a high sense, if not of the
dignity of his office, at least of the dignity his office conferred on
him.

Donal had next a brief interview with Mr. Graeme. The factor was in a
state of utter bewilderment, and readily yielded Donal a promise of
silence: the mere whim of a dying girl, it had better be ignored and
forgotten! As to Grant's part in it he did not know what to think. It
could not affect the property, he thought: it could hardly be a
marriage! And then there was the will--of the contents of which he knew
nothing! If it were a complete marriage, the will was worth nothing,
being made before it!

I will not linger over the quiet, sad time that followed. Donal was to
Arctura, she said, father, brother, husband, in one. Through him she
had reaped the harvest of the world, in spite of falsehood, murder,
fear, and distrust! She lay victorious on the battlefield!

In the heart of her bridegroom reigned a peace the world could not give
or take away. He loved with a love that cast the love of former days
into the shadow of a sweet but undesired remembrance. A long twilight
life lay before him, but he would have plenty to do! and such was the
love between him and Arctura, that every doing of the will of God was
as the tying of a fresh bond between him and her: she was his because
they were the Father's, whose will was the life and bond of the
universe.

"I think," said Donal, that same night by her bed, "when my mother
dies, she will go near you: I will, if I can, send you a message by
her. But it will not matter; it can only tell you what you will know
well enough--that I love you, and