ere he could assure him of
protection. This billet, hastily written, he intrusted to Gibbie, whom he
saw feeding his herd beside the bridge, and backed with a couple of
dollars his desire that it might instantly be delivered into the hand to
which it was addressed.

But it was decreed that Goose-Gibbie's intermediation, whether as an
emissary or as a man-at-arms, should be unfortunate to the family of
Tillietudlem. He unluckily tarried so long at the ale-house to prove if
his employer's coin was good that, when he appeared at Fairy Knowe, the
little sense which nature had given him was effectually drowned in ale
and brandy; and instead of asking for Lord Evandale, he demanded to speak
with Lady Margaret, whose name was more familiar to his ear. Being
refused admittance to her presence, he staggered away with the letter
undelivered, perversely faithful to Morton's instructions in the only
point in which it would have been well had he departed from them.
A few minutes after he was gone, Edith entered the apartment. Lord
Evandale and she met with mutual embarrassment, which Lady Margaret, who
only knew in general that their union had been postponed by her
granddaughter's indisposition, set down to the bashfulness of a bride and
bridegroom, and, to place them at ease, began to talk to Lady Emily on
indifferent topics. At this moment Edith, with a countenance as pale as
death, muttered, rather than whispered, to Lord Evandale a request to
speak with him. He offered his arm, and supported her into the small
ante-room, which, as we have noticed before, opened from the parlour. He
placed her in a chair, and, taking one himself, awaited the opening of
the conversation.

"I am distressed, my lord," were the first words she was able to
articulate, and those with difficulty; "I scarce know what I would say,
nor how to speak it."

"If I have any share in occasioning your uneasiness," said Lord Evandale,
mildly, "you will soon, Edith, be released from it."

"You are determined then, my lord," she replied, "to run this desperate
course with desperate men, in spite of your own better reason, in spite
of your friends' entreaties, in spite of the almost inevitable ruin which
yawns before you?"

"Forgive me, Miss Bellenden; even your solicitude on my account must not
detain me when my honour calls. My horses stand ready saddled, my
servants are prepared, the signal for rising will be given so soon as I
reach Kilsyth. If it is my fat