n your wild heart beating itself to
death against the other, that would have gladly shed its last drop for
its captive's sake. But Heaven punished me. I found, Nelly, that the
hand that had dealt the blow could not heal it. How could I approach you
with soft words, that had good right to shed tears of blood for my
deeds? So, as I cannot put my hand on my breast and die like my father,
I'll quit my moors and haughs and my country; I'll cross the sea and
bear the musquetoon, and never return--in part to atone to you, for you
sall have the choice to rule with my mother in the routh and goodwill of
Staneholme, or to take the fee for the dowager lands of Eweford, and
dwell in state in the centre of the stone and lime, and reek, and lords
and ladies of Edinburgh; in part because I can hold out no longer, nor
bide another day in Tantalus, which is the book name for an ill place of
fruitless longing and blighted hope. I'll no be near you in your danger,
because when other wives cry for the strong, grieved faces of their
gudemen, you will ban the day your een first fell upon me. Nelly
Carnegie, why did my love bring no return; no ae sweet kiss; never yet a
kind blink of your brown een, that ance looked at me in gay defiance,
and now heavily and darkly, till they close on this world?"

Something more Staneholme raved of this undeserved, unwon love, whose
possession had become an exaggerated good which he had continued to
crave without word or sign, with a boy's frenzy and a man's stanchness.
Nelly lost her power of will: she sat with the paper in her hand as if
she had ceased to comprehend its contents--as if its release from
bondage came too late.

"Dinna ye ken, Nelly woman, his presence will vex you no longer? you're
at liberty to go your own gate, and be as you have been--that was his
propine," whispered Lady Staneholme, in sorrowful perplexity, but
without rousing Nelly from her stupor. They lifted her on her bed, and
watched her until her trial took hold of her. No stand did Nelly make
against pain and anguish. She was sinking fast into that dreamless sleep
where the weary are at rest, when Lady Staneholme stood by her bed and
laid an heir by her side, bidding her rejoice, in tones that fell off
into a faint quivering sob of tenderness and woe; but Nelly's crushed,
stunned heart had still some hidden spring among its withered verdure,
and her Benoni called her back from the land of forgetfulness.

VII.--BLESSING AND AFF