gan to doubt Mr Forster as
much as she hated Lord Lovat, and to say to herself that his promises of
further personal liberty in the summer were mere coaxing words, uttered
to secure a quiet retreat from her presence. If she could see him, for
only five minutes, how she would tell him her mind!

She never again saw Mr Forster: but, one night in August, while she was
at the window, and just growing sleepy, she was summoned by the woman of
the house to dress herself for a night ride. She prepared herself
eagerly enough, and was off presently, without knowing anything of the
horsemen who escorted her.

It was with a gleam of pleasure that she saw that they were approaching
the lake she had so often gazed at from afar: and her heart grew lighter
still when she found that she was to traverse it. She began to talk, in
her new exhilaration; and she did not leave off, though nobody replied.
But her exclamations about the sunrise, the clearness of the water, and
the leaping of the fish, died away when she looked from face to face of
those about her, and found them all strange and very stern. At last,
the dip of the oars was the only sound; but it was a pleasant and
soothing one. All went well this day. After landing, the party
proceeded westwards--as they did nightly for nearly a week. It mattered
little that they did not enter a house in all that time. The weather
was so fine, that a sheepfold, or a grassy nook of the moorland, served
all needful purposes of a resting place by day.

On the sixth night, a surprise, and a terrible surprise, awaited the
poor lady. Her heart misgave her when the night wind brought the sound
of the sea to her ears--the surging sea which tosses and roars in the
rocky inlets of the western coast of Scotland. But her dismay was
dreadful when she discovered that there was a vessel below, on board
which she was to be carried without delay. On the instant, dreadful
visions arose before her imagination, of her being carried to a foreign
shore, to be delivered into the hands of the Stuarts, to be punished as
a traitor and spy; and of those far off plantations and dismal colonies
where people troublesome to their families were said to be sent, to be
chained to servile labour with criminals and slaves. She wept bitterly:
she clasped her hands--she threw herself at the feet of the conductor of
the party--she appealed to them all, telling them to do what they would
with her, if only they would not