The united effects of grief, shame, mortification, and insulted pride, were soon visible on her health; her cheek grew blanched and thin, her eyes dim; and though she did not weep, her sorrows lay deeper, and the canker-worm preyed upon her suffering heart. And not the least offensive to her feelings were those offerings of friendship which were mingled with condolence, when Lady Drumsturdy and others advised her to think seriously of the long and assiduous attentions of Clermistonlee; in short, "after all that had taken place," to receive him as her husband; that being in their opinion the only way to restore her forfeited honour.

The inuendo concealed under this odious advice provoked the anger of Lilian, whose concern was increased by perceiving that Lady Grisel and her own bosom friend and gossip Annie, were beginning to be of the same opinion. Their countenance, and the hope of Walter's return, had alone sustained her so long; but now a sense of utter desolation sank upon her soul, and her brain reeled with the terrible thoughts that oppressed it.

CHAPTER XII.
ST. GERMAINS.

And it was a' for our richtfu' king,
We ere left Scotia's strand, my dear;
And it was a' for our richtfu' king,
We saw another land, my dear.
OLD SONG.

Agitated by feelings such as few have experienced, on an evening in the summer of 1690, Walter Fenton found himself pursuing the dusty highway from Paris to St. Germains, the place where the hopes and the fears, the loyalty and the sorrows of the Jacobites were centred. He wore a plain suit of unlaced grey cloth, very much worn, a hat without a feather, and a plain walking-sword. He carried under his arm a small bundle, with particular care, for it contained a few necessaries and all he possessed in the world—his commission, the long-treasured letter of Dundee, and the Dutch standard he had taken at Killycrankie. These were now his whole fortune.

That day he had walked from Senlis without tasting food, and was quite exhausted. After spending his last sou on a glass of sour vin ordinaire at a small cottage near the Wood of Treason (where Ganelon in 780 formed his plot which betrayed the house of Ardennes, the peers of Charlemagne, and occasioned the defeat at Roncesvalles), he grasped his bundle, and pushed on with renewed energy. His handsome features were impressed by an air of sadness and deep abstraction, for the acute achings of present sorrow struggled with the gentler whisperings of hope, and though his feet traversed the hard flinty roadway from Paris, his thoughts were far away in the land of his childhood, and his wandering fancy luxuriated on the memory of many a much-loved scene he might be fated to behold no more, and many an episode of tenderness and love that would never be re-acted again.

How vividly he recalled every glance and graceful action of Lilian, as he had last beheld her. Nearest and dearest to his heart, she rendered the memory of his native land still more beloved, for she yet trod its soil and breathed its air, and he knew that daily she could gaze on those blue hills which are the first landmarks of the child in youth, and the last of the man in age, and to the recollection of which the emigrant and the exile cling with the tenacity of life.

The current of his thoughts was interrupted, and his cheek flushed. The great and striking brick façade of the old castle of St. Germains, with its turrets shining in the setting sun, arose before him. There dwelt he on whom the hopes of half a nation rested, and Walter drew breath more freely as he progressed; his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed with animation, for now other and less painful thoughts were occurring to his fancy. With the buoyancy natural to youth, sorrow gave way as hope spread its rainbow before him: and bright visions of the King's triumphant return and restoration by the swords of the Cavaliers or Jacobites, mingled with his own dreams of love and honour. Fired with ardour, he often grasped his sword, and springing forward, longed to throw himself at the foot of James VII., and pour forth in transport that singularly deep and burning passion of loyalty which animated every member of his faction.

"And this is the palace of our King!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "Heaven grant I may yet greet him in his old ancestral dome of Holyrood!" But the fever of his naturally excitable spirits subsided when approaching the edifice, for the air of silence and gloom that pervaded it struck a chill on his anxious heart.