h a silent bow.

He met Lord Carse and Janet coming downstairs, and begged them to stay
awhile, dreading, perhaps, a street encounter. But Lord Carse was bent
on being gone immediately--and had not another moment to spare.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE WRONG JOURNEY.

Lady Carse and her maid Bessie--an elderly woman who had served her from
her youth up, bearing with her temper for the sake of that family
attachment which exists so strongly in Scotland,--were busy packing
trunks this afternoon, when they were told that a gentleman must speak
with Lady Carse below stairs.

"There will be no peace till we are off," observed the lady to her maid.
In answer to which Bessie only sighed deeply.

"I want you to attend me downstairs," observed the lady. "But this
provoking nonsense of yours, this crying about going a journey, has made
you not fit to be seen. If any friend of my lord's saw your red eyes,
he would go and say that my own maid was on my lord's side. I must go
down alone."

"Pray, madam, let me attend you. The gentleman will not think of
looking at me: and I will stand with my back to the light, and the room
is dark."

"No; your very voice is full of tears. Stay where you are."

Lady Carse sailed into the room very grandly, not knowing whom she was
to see. Nor was she any wiser when she did see him. He was muffled up,
and wore a shawl tied over his mouth, and kept his hat on; so that
little space was left between hat, periwig, and comforter. He
apologised for wearing his hat, and for keeping the lady standing--his
business was short:--in the first place to show her Lord Carse's ring,
which she would immediately recognise.

She glanced at the ring, and knew it at once.

"On the warrant of this ring," continued the gentleman, "I come from
your husband to require from you what you cannot refuse,--either as a
wife, or consistent with your safety. You hold a document,--a letter
from your husband, written to you in conjugal confidence five years ago,
from London,--a letter--"

"You need not describe it further," said the lady. "It is my chief
treasure, and not likely to escape my recollection. It is a letter from
Lord Carse, containing treasonable expressions relating to the royal
family."

"About the treason we might differ, madam; but my business is, not to
argue that, but to require of you to deliver up that paper to me, on
this warrant," again producing the ring.

The lady laughed, and asked w