s: "Will you bless me, Leslie?"

His voice was thick and hoarse; it petrified her, so still was she--so
dumb; and at that moment the knocker sounded, and importunate voices
were demanding the Laird of Otter.

He obeyed the summons, spoke with his servants a little time, and
returned to find Leslie in the same arrested posture, with the same
blanched face. He had resumed his seaman's coat, and carried his cap in
his hand. He was calm now, and smiling, but with a face wan and shadowed
with an inexpressible cloud.

"It may not be, Leslie," he said, soft and low; "Nigel Boswell's boat is
in sight, struggling to make Earlscraig; he was always rash and
unskilled, though seaward born and bred. If he is not forestalled, his
boat will be bottom upmost, or crushed like glass within the hour. I
trust I will save him; but if there be peril and death in my path, then
listen to what I say, and remember it. Whatever has gone before, at this
moment I am yours; you may doubt it, deny it--I swear it, Leslie.
Despise me, reject me if you will; I cannot perish misinterpreted and
misjudged. I loved Alice Boswell. My love is ashes with its object. I
did not love you once; I love you now. I love a living woman truer,
higher, holier than the dead; and for my love's sake, not for my
vows--the first for love, if it be the last."

He had her in his arms; his lingering kisses were on her eyes, her hair,
her hands. He was gone, and still she remained rooted to the ground. Was
it amazement, anger, terror?--or was it a wild throb of exultation for
that, the real moment of their union? or because she had won him, and
was his who had slighted her, sinned against her--but who was still
Hector Garret, manly, wise, and noble--the hero of her girlhood.

She was roused reluctantly by the entrance of Bridget Kennedy, shaking
in every limb.

"Madam, why did you let Master Hector go?--he has had the look of a
doomed man this many a day. It is thus that men are called, as plain as
when the Banshee cries. Madam, say your prayers for Master Hector while
he is still in life."

"I must go to him, Bridget; I must follow him. Don't try to keep me. He
is my husband, too. The poor women were crowding on the beach this
morning. Let me go!"

She understood that he was exposing himself for another--that his life
hung on the turning of a straw. She ran upstairs, but she did not seek
her child, and when she descended, Bridget had still to fetch her mantle
and bonn