The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

194 WAVEiRLEY NOVELS,
allan found it necessary, when she had made some attempts to continue
her narrative without success, to prompt her memory, by demanding —
"What proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a narrativo so different from that which she had originally told?"
"' The evidence," she replied, " of Eveline Neville's real birth was in the
Countess's possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept private;
— they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the left-hand
drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room. These she
meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again, when she
trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her ail country, or
to get her settled in marriage."
" But did you not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me,
unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avowt his
relationship to -to the unhappy" -
" We did; and, with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her
either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that
was, that your father thought it right the young leddy should pass for his
daughter for a while, on account o' some family reasons that were amang
them."
" But wherefore, when you learned our union, was this dreadful artifice
persisted in?"
"It wasna,"' she replied, "till Lady Glenallan had communicated this
fause tale, that she suspected ye had actually made a marriage -nor even
then did you avow it sae as to satisfy her whether the ceremony had in verity
passed atween ye or no-But ye remember, 0 ye canna but remember w'eel,
what passed in that awfu' meeting!"
"Woman! you swore upon the gospels to the fact which you nowA disavOW.."
" I did, - and I wad hae taen a yet mair holy pledge on it, if there had
been ane - I wad not hae spared the blood of my body, or the guilt of my
soul, to serve the house of Glenallan."
"Wretch! do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences
yet more dreadful-do you esteem that a service to the house of your bene
factors?"
"I served her, wha was then the head of Glenallan, as she required me
to serve her. The cause was between God and her conscience-the manner
between God and mine — She is gane to her account, and I maun follow.
Have I tauld you a'?"
" No," answered Lord Glenallan-" you have yet more to tell-you have
to tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to despair,
stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak truth -
was that dreadful —was that horrible incident" -he could scarcely articulate the words —" was it as reported? or was it an act of yet further, though
not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by others?"
"I understand you," said Elspeth. "But report spoke truth; —our
false witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her ain distracted act.
On that fearfu' disclosure, when ye rushed frae the Countess's presence, and
saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-fiaught, the Countess hadna
yet discovered your private marriage; she hadna fund out that the union,
which she had framed this awfu' tale to prevent, had e'en taen place. Ye
fled from the house as if the fire o' Heaven was about to fa' upon it, and
Miss Neville, atween reason and the want o't, was put under sure ward.
But the ward sleep't, and the prisoner waked-the window was open-the
way was before her-there was the cliff, and there was the sea! —0, when
will I forget that!"
"And thus died," said the Earl, " even so as was reported?"
" No, my lord. I had gane out to the cove-the tide was in, and it flowed,
as ye'll remember, to the foot of that cliff- it was a great convenience that