e hanggit me! nae less!" cried the
girl, with a shudder.

"_Hanged_ you? Whatever do you mean? Are ye crazy, girl?"

"Ay, weel nigh!"

"But what do you mean by saying that I have hanged you? Come, I insist on
knowing!"

"Oh, then I just ken a' anent the murder up at Lone Castle! Ye hae drawn
me in till a robbery and murder, without me kenning onything anent it
until a' was ower, and me with the waefu' woodie before me!"

"Rose, if I understand you, it seems that you think I was in some sort
concerned in the death of Sir Lemuel Levison?"

"Ay, that is just what I _be_ thinking!" said the shuddering girl.

"Then you do me a very foul and infamous injustice, Rose! Look at me! Do
I look like an assassin? Look at me, I say!" sternly insisted the man.

"I canna luke at ye! I winna luke at ye! I hae lukit at ye ower muckle
for my ain gude already!" cried the girl, cowering under the clothes.

"See here, lass? I say that you are utterly wrong! I had no connection
whatever with the death of the banker! I would not have hurt a hair of
his gray head for all that he was worth! Come! I answer you seriously and
kindly, although your grotesque and horrible suspicion deserves about
equally to be laughed at or punished. Come, look into my face now and see
whether I am not telling you the truth."

"And sae ye did na do the deed?" she inquired at length, uncovering her
head and showing a pale affrighted face.

"My poor lass, how terrified you have been! No, of course, I did not. But
how came you to know anything about that horrible affair?"

Rose took up the morning paper and put it in his hands.

"Ah! confound the press!" muttered the man between his teeth.

"What did ye say?"

"These papers, with their ghastly accounts of murders, are nuisances,
Rose!"

"Ay sae they be! But ye didna do the deed?"

The man made a gesture of impatience.

"Aweel, then sin ye had na knowledge o' the deed until after it was done,
what did ye mean by saying that something wad happen, wad pit a' thoughts
o' marriage and gi'eing in marriage out the heads o' a' concerned?--when
ye spak till me under the balcony that same night?"

"I meant--I meant," said the man, hesitating, "that I would let the
preparations for the wedding go on to the very altar, and then before the
altar I would reject the bride! I had heard something about her."

"Ah! I thought ye did it a' for spite!"

"But Rose, I never thought you were such an utter coward as I h