ad he entered the room than she
locked the door, and, snatching up a brace of pistols, she exclaimed:
"Wretch, you have blasted the reputation of a woman who never did you
the slightest wrong. You have fixed an indelible stain upon the child
at her bosom; and all this because, coward as you are, you thought
there was no one to take her part." At the same time, it is said, she
fired two shots at him with a pistol, one of which pierced his heart.
Her husband asserted, however, that she fired to save herself from
outrage, an explanation which she affirmed was "only too true." Her
husband also declared that his wife was desirous of sending for a
magistrate and of telling him the whole story, but that he advised her
against it. But not appearing to stand her trial in the ensuing
February, she was outlawed, and obtained refuge in the mansion house
of the Swinton family in the concealed apartment already
described.[32] According to Sir Walter Scott, she "returned and lived
and died in Edinbugh"; but her life must have been comparatively
short, as her husband married again on October 6th, 1719.

Akin to this dramatic episode may be mentioned one concerning Robert
Perceval, the second son of the Right Hon. Sir John Perceval, when
reading for the law in his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. The clock had
just struck the hour of midnight, when, on looking up from his book,
he was astonished to see a figure standing between himself and the
door, completely muffled up in a long cloak so as to defy recognition.

"Who are you?" But the figure made no answer.

"What do you want?" No reply.

The figure stood motionless. Thinking it made a low hollow laugh, the
young student struck at the intruder with his sword, but the weapon
met with no resistance, and not a single drop of blood stained it.

This was amazing, and still no answer. Determined to solve the mystery
of this strange being, he cast aside its cloak, when lo! "he saw his
own apparition, bloody and ghostly, whereat he was so astonished that
he immediately swooned away, but, recovering, he saw the spectre
depart."

At first this occurrence left the most unpleasant impressions on his
mind, but as days passed by without anything happening, the warning,
or whatever it was, faded gradually from his memory, and he lived as
before, drinking and quarrelling, managing to embroil himself at play
with the celebrated Beau Fielding. The day at last came, however,
when his equanimity was dis