No
wedding could go on after _that_, you know, ma'am, anyhow, let alone
the bride falling into a fit the minute she saw the bloody corpse of her
murdered father, and being of a raving manyyack ever since. Instead of a
wedding and a feast there will be an inquest and a funeral."

"Was--there--a--robbery?" inquired Rose Cameron in a low, faint,
frightened tone.

"Ay, ma'am, a great robbery of money and jewelry, and no clue yet to the
vilyuns as did it! But won't you drink your tea, ma'am?"

"Na, na, I dinna need it now. Ou! this is awfu'! Wae worth the day!"
exclaimed the horror-stricken girl, shivering from head to foot as with
an ague.

"Indeed, I am very sorry I told you anything about it, ma'am. But I
thought it would interest you. I didn't think it would shock you. But,
indeed, if I were you, I wouldn't take on so about people I didn't know
anything about. And you didn't know anything about _them_. You
haven't even asked the names," urged the worthy woman.

"Na, na, I did na ken onything anent them; but it is unco awfu'!" said
Rose, in hurried, tremulous tones.

Not for all her hidden treasures would she have had it suspected that she
even remotely knew anything about the murder or the man who was murdered.

"And yet you take on about them. Ah! your heart is too tender, ma'am. If
you are going to take up everybody else's crosses as well as your own,
you'll never get through this world, ma'am. Take an old woman's word
for that."

"Thank'ee, Mrs. Rogers. Noo, please gae awa and leave me my lane. I'll
ring for ye if I want ye," said Rose, nervously.

"Very well, ma'am. I'll go and see after your breakfast."

"Oh, onything at a'! The same as yestreen. Only gae awa!" exclaimed the
excited girl, too deeply moved now even to care what she should eat for
breakfast.

When the housekeeper had left her alone she gave way to the emotions of
horror and fear which prudence had caused her to restrain in the presence
of the woman. She wept, and sobbed, and cried out, and struck her hands
together. She was, in truth, in an agony of terror.

For now she understood the hidden meaning of her lover's words, when on
the night of the murder he had said to her, under the balcony, "Something
will happen to-night that will put all thoughts of marrying and giving
in marriage out of the heads of all concerned." And she comprehended also
how the meaning of the fragmentary conversation she had overheard between
her lover and his c