ed the girl, frightened, yet
exasperated, catching the old woman's withered hands, and holding
them fast.

"Don't ask me, madam," reiterated Bridget, sternly. "Better not."

"I will know; what do you mean? Oh, you hurt me, you hurt me! I will ask
Hector Garret himself. I cannot bear this suspense!"

"Child, do you choose what you can bear? Beware!" menaced the nurse;
then, as Leslie would have broken from her--

"Have it, then! He is the brother of that Alice Boswell who perished in
the burning of Earlscraig nigh twenty years ago."

"Poor lady, Bridget," Leslie said, with a bewildered, excited sob. "Poor
unhappy lady; but what has that to do with him, with me? I understand no
better. Help me, Bridget Kennedy--a woman, like myself. I will not let
you go."

"Madam, what good will it serve? It is small matter now:" then half
reluctantly, half with that possession with which truth fills its
keeper, slowly and sadly she unfolded the closed story. "What had Master
Hector to do with Alice Boswell? He had to do with her as a man has to
do with his heart's desire, his snare, his pitfall."

"He loved her, Bridget; he would have wedded her. I might never have
been his--that is all."

"Love, marriage!" scornfully; "I know not that he spoke the words, but
he lay at her feet. Proud as Master Hector was, she might have trodden
on his neck; cool as Master Hector seems to others, he was fire to her.
I have seen him come in from watching her shadow, long hours below her
window, in the wind and rain, and salt spray. I have known him when he
valued her glove in his bosom more than a king's crown--blest, blest if
he had but a word or a glance. But it is long gone by, madam. Master
Hector has gained wisdom and gravity, and is the head of the house; and
for fair Miss Alice, she has gone to her place. Yes, she was a beauty,
Miss Alice; she could play on stringed instruments like the heavenly
harpers, and speak many tongues, and work till the flowers grew beneath
her fingers. She learnt to wile men's souls from their bodies, if
nothing more, in the outlandish parts where she was bred."

"So fair, so gifted--did she care for him in return, Bridget? Did she
love him as he loved her?" asked a faint voice.

"What need you mind, madam?" sharply. "It is ill speaking harsh words of
the dead. Did I not say she had gone to her place? God defend you from
such a passage. Let her rest. Sure she cared for him, as she cared for
aught else save he