drop the suit
of Seavern. And at that, Helmar burst in: he was like one wild, and he
conjured Mary,--but she sat there stone-still, looking through him with
the eyes in her white, deadly face, as though she'd never seen him, and
answering no word, as if she were deaf to sound of his voice henceforth;
and he rose and glared down on my mother, who stood there with her white
throat up, proud and defiant as a stag at bay,--and he vowed he'd darken
her day, for she had taken the light out of his life. And Angus was by:
he'd sided with Helmar till then; but at the threat, he took the other
by the shoulder and led him to the door, with a blue blaze in those
Ingestre eyes, and Helmar never resisted, but fell down on his face on
the stones and shuddered with sobs, and we heard them into the night,
but with morning he was gone."

"Oh! And Mary?"

"'Deed, I don't think she cares. She's never mentioned his name. D'you
mind that ring of rubies she wears, like drops of blood all round the
hoop? 'Twas his. She shifted it to the left hand, I saw. It was broken
once,--and what do you think she did? She put a blow-pipe at the
candle-flame, and, holding it up in tiny pincers, soldered the two ends
together without taking it off her finger,--and it burning into the
bone! Strathsay grit. It's on her white wedding-finger. The scar's
there, too.--St! Where's your music? You've not played a note these five
minutes. Whisht! here comes my mother!"

How was Helmar to darken my mother's day, I couldn't but think, as I
began to toss off the tune again. And poor Mary,--there were more scars
than I carried, in the house. But while I turned the thoughts over,
Angus came for me to dance, and Margray, he said, should play, and my
mother signed consent, and so I went.

But 'twas a heavy heart I carried to and fro, as I remembered what I'd
heard, and perhaps it colored everything else with gloom. Why was Angus
holding my hand as we glided? why was I by his side as we stood? and as
he spoke, why was I so dazzled with delight at the sound that I could
not gather the sense? Oh, why, but that I loved him, and that his noble
compassion would make him the same to me at first as ever,--slowly,
slowly, slowly lowering, while he turned to Effie or some other
fair-faced lass? Ah, it seemed to me then in a rebellious heart that my
lot was bitter. And fearful that my sorrow would abroad, I broke into a
desperation of gayety till my mother's hand was on my arm. Bu