h he
involuntarily overheard, the reader must conceive, for we dare not
attempt to describe them. An hundred times he was tempted to burst upon
their interview, or to exclaim aloud, "Edith, I yet live!" and as often
the recollection of her plighted troth, and of the debt of gratitude
which he owed Lord Evandale (to whose influence with Claverhouse he
justly ascribed his escape from torture and from death), withheld him
from a rashness which might indeed have involved all in further distress,
but gave little prospect of forwarding his own happiness. He repressed
forcibly these selfish emotions, though with an agony which thrilled his
every nerve.

"No, Edith!" was his internal oath, "never will I add a thorn to thy
pillow. That which Heaven has ordained, let it be; and let me not add, by
my selfish sorrows, one atom's weight to the burden thou hast to bear. I
was dead to thee when thy resolution was adopted; and never, never shalt
thou know that Henry Morton still lives!"

As he formed this resolution, diffident of his own power to keep it, and
seeking that firmness in flight which was every moment shaken by his
continuing within hearing of Edith's voice, he hastily rushed from his
apartment by the little closet and the sashed door which led to the
garden.

But firmly as he thought his resolution was fixed, he could not leave the
spot where the last tones of a voice so beloved still vibrated on his
ear, without endeavouring to avail himself of the opportunity which the
parlour window afforded to steal one last glance at the lovely speaker.
It was in this attempt, made while Edith seemed to have her eyes
unalterably bent upon the ground, that Morton's presence was detected by
her raising them suddenly. So soon as her wild scream made this known to
the unfortunate object of a passion so constant, and which seemed so
ill-fated, he hurried from the place as if pursued by the furies. He
passed Halliday in the garden without recognising or even being sensible
that he had seen him, threw himself on his horse, and, by a sort of
instinct rather than recollection, took the first by-road in preference
to the public route to Hamilton.

In all probability this prevented Lord Evandale from learning that he was
actually in existence; for the news that the Highlanders had obtained a
decisive victory at Killiecrankie had occasioned an accurate look-out to
be kept, by order of the Government, on all the passes, for fear of some
commo