me to lie to you?--But I wadna
consent to stain my hand with blood.--Then she said, By the religion of
our holy Church they are ower sibb thegither. But I expect nothing but
that both will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates;'--that
was her addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever ower
busy wi' brains like mine, that are subtle beyond their use and station,
I was unhappily permitted to add--But they might be brought to think
themselves sae sibb as no Christian law will permit their wedlock.'"

Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing
as almost to rend the roof of the cottage.--"Ah! then Eveline Neville was
not the--the"--

"The daughter, ye would say, of your father?" continued Elspeth. "No--be
it a torment or be it a comfort to you--ken the truth, she was nae mair a
daughter of your father's house than I am."

"Woman, deceive me not!--make me not curse the memory of the parent I
have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,
the most infernal"--

"Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent
that's gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose
faults have led to this dreadfu' catastrophe?"

"Mean you my brother?--he, too, is gone," said the Earl.

"No," replied the sibyl, "I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not
transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret
while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for
a time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to
canker them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we
threw, and it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to
meet it. Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action,
our stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got
ower, neither wad nor could hae been practised against ye."

"Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate nobleman--"it is as if a film fell
from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints
of consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly
to impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to
believe myself guilty."

"She could not speak mair plainly," answered Elspeth, "without
confessing her ain fraud,--and she would have submitted to be torn by
wild horses, rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still
lived, so would I for her sake.