led her up the staircase and into her sleeping-chamber. Nelly marked,
with dim dread, the tear-stains on the pallid cheeks of placid age, and
the trembling of the feeble hand that guided her. She had nothing to
fear; but what was the news for which there was such solemn preparation?

"My puir bairn," Lady Staneholme began brokenly, "I've had an interview
with my son, and I've learnt, late, some passages in the past; and I
wonder not, but I maun lament, for I am a widow mother, Nelly, and my
only son Adam who did you wrong and showed you no pity, has got his
orders to serve with the soldiers in the Low Countries. He has not
stayed to think; he has left without one farewell: he is off and away,
to wash out the sins of him and his in his young blood. I will never see
his face more: but you are a free woman; and, as the last duty he will
receive at your hand, he bids you read his words."

Nelly's hand closed tightly over its enclosure. "Who says I told he did
me wrang?" she said, proudly, her dilated eyes lifted up to the
deprecating ones that did not avoid her gaze.

"Na, na, ye never stoopit to blame him. Weary fa' him! Nelly
Carnegie," ejaculated honest Lady Staneholme, "although he is my ain
that made you his, sair, sair against your woman's will, and so binged
up blacker guilt at his doorstane, as if the lightest heritage o' sin
werena' hard to step ower. But, God forgive me! It's old Staneholme
risen up to enter afresh upon his straits, and may He send him pardon
and peace in His ain time."

"Nelly" (Staneholme's letter said),--"for _my_ Nelly you'll never be,
though the law has given me body and estate,--what garred me love you
like life or death? I've seen bonnier, and you're no so good as my
mother, or you would have forgiven me long syne. Why did you laugh, and
mock, and scorn me, when I first made up to you among your fine
Edinburgh folks? Had you turned your shoulder upon me with still
steadfastness, I might have been driven to the wall--I would have
believed you. When you said that you would lie in the grave sooner than
in my arms, you roused the evil temper within me; and though I had
mounted the Grassmarket, I swore I would make you my wife. What call or
title had you, a young lass, to thwart your lady mother and the Laird of
Staneholme? And when I had gone thus far--oh! Nelly, pity me--there was
no room to repent or turn back. I dared not leave you to dree alane your
mother's wrath: there was less risk i