id at the end of our stage, where I hope you will enjoy good
rest, under my word that you shall not be molested."

But the lady would not be silent. She declared very peremptorily her
determination to destroy herself on the first opportunity; and no one
who knew her temper could dispute the probability of her doing that, or
any other act of passion. From bewailing herself, she went on to say
things of her husband and Lord Lovat, and of her purposes in regard to
them, which Mr Forster felt that he and others ought not, for her own
sake, to hear. He quickened his pace, but she complained of cramp in
her side. He then halted, whispered to two men who watched for his
orders, and had the poor lady again silenced by the cloth being tied
over her mouth. She tried to drop off, but that only caused the strap
which bound her to the rider to be buckled tighter. She found herself
treated like a wayward child. When she could no longer make opposition,
the pace of the party was quickened, and it was not more than two hours
past midnight when they reached a country house, which she knew to
belong to an Edinburgh lawyer, a friend of her husband's.

Servants were up--fires were burning--supper was on the table. The lady
was shown to a comfortable bedroom.

From thence she refused to come down. Mr Forster and another gentleman
of the party therefore visited her to explain as much as they thought
proper of Lord Carse's plans, and of their own method of proceeding.

They told her that Lord Carse found himself compelled, for family
reasons, to sequestrate her. For her life and safety there was no fear;
but she was to live where she could have that personal liberty of which
no one wished to deprive her, without opportunity of intercourse with
her family.

"And where can that be?" she asked. "Who will undertake to say that I
shall live, in the first place, and that my children shall not hear from
me, in the next?"

"Where your abode is to be, we do not know," replied Mr Forster.
"Perhaps it is not yet settled. As for your life, madam, I have engaged
to transfer you alive and safe, as far as lies in human power."

"Transfer me! To whom?"

"To another friend of your husband's, who will take equal care of you.
I am sorry for your threats of violence on yourself. They compel me to
do what I should not otherwise have thought of--to forbid your being
alone, even in this your own room."

"You do not mean--"

"I mean that yo