"Proceed, please."
"And now, my lady, I must tell you what happened at Lone, as I received it from her own lips this very morning, before I came here. She went down to Scotland by the night express of the Great Northern, and arrived at Lone early in the morning of the day before the wedding-day that should have been. She found great preparations going on for the marriage of the markis and the heiress. She went over to the castle with the crowd of the country people who gathered there to see the grand decorations for the wedding. But she saw nothing of the bride or of the bridegroom; and, moreover, she was warned off with threats by the servants of the castle. But at length, towards night-fall, my lady, she saw Mr. John Scott, as he called himself, hanging about the Hereward Arms, and she 'went for him,' as the saying is. But he drew her apart from the crowd. And there she charged him with perfidy, and threatened to appear at the church the next day with her marriage lines and forbid the banns. He did all he could to quiet her, said that she was deceived and mistaken, and that he could not marry any one, being already married to herself, and that if she would meet him that night at the castle, just under the balcony, near Malcolm's Tower, he would explain everything to her satisfaction."
"It was no dream, then! Oh, Heaven! it was no dream! And my own senses witness against him!" exclaimed Salome again, throwing up her face and hands with a cry of anguish, and then dropping them, as before, upon the table in an attitude of abject despair.
"My lady, this is too much for you! too much!" said the compassionate woman, weeping over the distress she had caused.
"No, no; go on, go on; I will hear it all. My own senses, pitying Heaven! my own senses bear witness to it," moaned Salome, in a smothered voice.
"Ah, my lady, it grieves me deeply to go on, as you bid me. They met, Mr. John Scott, as he called himself, and Rose Cameron, at the time and place agreed on—at midnight at Castle Lone, under the balcony near Malcolm's Tower. And there, my lady, he repeated to her that he was not going to marry anybody, reminding her that he was already married to herself; and he explained that something would happen before morning, which would put all thoughts of marrying and giving in marriage out of the heads of all parties concerned. And then he—"
A groan of anguish burst from the almost breaking heart of the wretched bride, as she lifted a face convulsed and deathly white with her soul's great agony.
"My lady! oh, my lady!" exclaimed the woman, in much alarm.
"I heard it all! I heard it all!" cried Salome, as if speaking to herself and unconscious of the presence of a hearer. "I heard it all! I heard it all! Yea! my own senses were witnesses of my own dishonor and despair!" she groaned, as she threw her arms and her head violently forward upon the table.
"My lady, for mercy's sake, my lady!" exclaimed the widow, standing up and bending over her.