arranged to leave 'Highlands' that morning and to meet
you later in a lonely valley among the mountains. Naturally I was much
excited and eager to get to your side. Yet even then I was a coward.
Had I acted as I ought, I should have taken you to a minister and have
married you before witnesses, but the other way appeared easy, and you
did not seem to mind. I must confess, too, that the idea of a Scotch
marriage was, in some ways, unreal to me. It did not appear to me as
binding as a marriage service should. I expect that was why I
suggested this method of our becoming man and wife, for I can see it
now--I was a coward even then!

"Still, as I have said, I longed to get to your side, longed to make
you my wife, even although I felt I might be acting foolishly. So
excited was I that when a servant brought me a letter just as I was
leaving, I did not trouble to open it. Had I done so, our future might
have been different; I do not know; but I'm telling you this that I may
keep nothing from you, for I am determined that you shall know the
truth and the whole truth. I thought nothing of the letter through the
day; my joy at being with you was too great for that, and the
excitement of the thought that I was taking you as my wife made me
forgetful of everything else. You remember the scene, Jean? You
remember how we took each other as man and wife, there amidst the
silence and loneliness? You remember, too, how you suggested that we
should ask God to bless our union, and how we knelt side by side and
prayed? The memory of that hour has whipped me like scorpions ever
since.

"When presently we reached the inn, I thought of the letter and read
it. It was from my mother's cousin, who had charge of my affairs and
acted as a guardian to me. It seems that he loved her when they were
boy and girl, and although she married another man, his love never
died. Perhaps that was why he was fond of me. But he never liked my
father, and hated the name Graham as a consequence. In the letter he
wrote, he told me that the little property which I had thought to be
mine had all vanished. It seems that it had been invested in what were
thought to be perfectly safe securities, but which had become
worthless; therefore I, who was not yet called to the Bar, and had no
profession, was penniless. He told me it was necessary for me to
return immediately, as he had other news of the gravest import to
convey to me, but which I could n