She sprang from bed, clasped Maude's hand, and went softly, mechanically to the room. It was empty, and the cold light of the waning moon flooded it from end to end, making it seem alike lone and ghostly.
Her imagination had played her false; but she was painfully haunted by the memory of that dream and the palpable sounds that, after waking, had followed it; and hourly, in her true spirit of Scottish superstition, expected to hear of fatal tidings from the seat of war—like her who, of old, had watched by the Weird Yett of Earlshaugh.
Like poor Malcolm Skene was she, too, to have her presentiment—her prevision of sorrow to come?
It almost seemed so.
But her thoughts now clung persistently to the hero of her girlish days; he had behaved faithlessly, uncertainly to her, she thought; yet, perhaps, he might come back to her some day, if God spared him, and then he would find the old and tender love awaiting him still.
Yet Roland might come home and marry someone else! No man, she had heard, went through life remembering and regretting one woman for ever. Was it indeed so?
But after the night of her strange dream the morning papers contained the brief, yet terrible, telegram stating that a battle had been fought at a place called Kirbekan, by General Earle's column (of which the Staffordshire formed a part), but that no details thereof had come to hand.
The recent calamity she had undergone rendered Hester's heart apprehensive that she might soon have to undergo another.
And ere the lengthened news of the battle did come, she and Maude had left Edinburgh, as they anticipated, perhaps for ever.