y did a mysterious form
always emerge from the gloomier recesses of New Aberfoyle, and silently
glide through the darkness?

What instinct guided this phantom with ease through passages so narrow
as to appear to be impracticable?

Why should the strange being, with eyes flashing through the deepest
darkness, come cautiously creeping along the shores of Lake Malcolm? Why
so directly make his way towards Simon's cottage, yet so carefully
as hitherto to avoid notice? Why, bending towards the windows, did he
strive to catch, by listening, some fragment of the conversation within
the closed shutters?

And, on catching a few words, why did he shake his fist with a menacing
gesture towards the calm abode, while from between his set teeth issued
these words in muttered fury, "She and he? Never! never!"

CHAPTER XIV. A SUNRISE

A MONTH after this, on the evening of the 20th of August, Simon Ford and
Madge took leave, with all manner of good wishes, of four tourists, who
were setting forth from the cottage.

James Starr, Harry, and Jack Ryan were about to lead Nell's steps over
yet untrodden paths, and to show her the glories of nature by a light to
which she was as yet a stranger. The excursion was to last for two days.
James Starr, as well as Harry, considered that during these eight
and forty hours spent above ground, the maiden would be able to see
everything of which she must have remained ignorant in the gloomy pit;
all the varied aspects of the globe, towns, plains, mountains, rivers,
lakes, gulfs, and seas would pass, panorama-like, before her eyes.

In that part of Scotland lying between Edinburgh and Glasgow, nature
would seem to have collected and set forth specimens of every one of
these terrestrial beauties. As to the heavens, they would be spread
abroad as over the whole earth, with their changeful clouds, serene or
veiled moon, their radiant sun, and clustering stars. The expedition had
been planned so as to combine a view of all these things.

Simon and Madge would have been glad to go with Nell; but they never
left their cottage willingly, and could not make up their minds to quit
their subterranean home for a single day.

James Starr went as an observer and philosopher, curious to note, from
a psychological point of view, the novel impressions made upon Nell;
perhaps also with some hope of detecting a clue to the mysterious events
connected with her childhood. Harry, with a little trepidation, as