it be by poison?

"Tap! tap! tap!" Three distinct, sharp touches as of a nail upon the
window-pane made Sir Murray start, shivering, from his guilty reverie.

What was that? Some ghostly warning for or against his plots?--or was
he so distempered by his broodings that this was but the coining of
imagination?

"_Tap! tap! tap_!"

There it was again, and for a moment a strange sense of terror pervaded
him, and he could not stir. But only for a moment; the next minute a
feeling of grim satisfaction prevailed. This, then, was to be a night
of enlightenment--here was a new revelation--this, then, was the means
of communication? Evidently some mistake of the bearer, and he had but
to go to the window, stretch forth his hand, and take a letter; or--the
thought sent a thrill through him as he stepped forward--was it the
keeping of an assignation? The window was many feet above the ground,
and if he dashed back the ladder--

He paused, for there was the slight darkening of the blind as if a
shadow were passing over it, and now, half-mad with rage, Sir Murray
Gernon felt that all his suspicions were confirmed, as, springing
forward, he tore the blind aside, just as again, loudly and distinctly,
came the blows upon the glass.

End of Volume I.

Book 1, Chapter XXVI.

NOCTURNAL.

"Perhaps, after all, it's just as weel that he did not come," mused
Alexander McCray, as he stood one morning upon the long wooden bridge
which connected, at the narrowest part, the two shores of the fine piece
of water lying between the park of Merland Castle and the
pleasure-grounds. He was leaning over the rail, and gazing down into
the clear depths below, where, screened by the broad leaves of the
water-lilies, which here and there bore some sweet white chalice, the
huge carp were floating lazily, now and then giving a flip with their
broad tails to send themselves a few feet through the limpid medium in
which they dwelt.

"Perhaps, after all, it's just as weel that he did not come any more,
but if he had, I would have pitched him in here as freely as have looked
at him, and he wouldn't have hurt neither--a bad chiel. Them that's
born to be hanged will never be drowned, and he'll come to the gallows
sure enough, and deserves it, too, for ill-using that poor bairn as he
did."

"Weel, this winna do," he said, starting from his reverie, and
shouldering the broom with which he had been sweeping the bridge. "I'll
just e'en go and do