Another spring had come. Calmly and gently as on the heart-sick watchers fell the last rays of the setting sun on Ally’s weary brow as she sat by the window of her boudoir listlessly gazing into the street. Gay dresses were strewed around her—jewels flashed from their velvet cushions upon the dressing-table beside her, and ornaments of rich and varied style lay beside them—yet Ally’s thoughts seemed far away. Her sweet face was paler and thinner, and on her dimpled mouth lay that peculiar expression of suffering which the lips only can show forth—her dark-blue eyes seemed larger, and a wild look had taken the place of the soft dove-like glances which had won Dugald’s heart. Oh! Ally was fearfully changed.
Suddenly, as though an ice-bolt had stricken her, the young girl started from her dreamy posture. The color faded from her parted lips and she clung to the window sill as she gazed at some object below.
A young Highlander, in the garb of his native hills, had just passed by, and even now paused before the arched gate-way of that princely mansion. Ally looked no longer, but sinking upon her knees, she wept.
A few moments afterward, her slight form might have been seen gliding down the wide staircase and entering a small library adjoining the drawing-room, with which a glass door communicated—softly the curtain was lifted, while with clasped hands and a frame shivering with the intensity of her agitation she saw and heard all that passed within.
Dugald, her own wronged Dugald was there—she had not been deceived then in that hasty glimpse of his figure from the window. A chill crept over Ally’s heart as she saw his pale face and sorrowful look—but this was as nothing to the agony that thrilled through her ere long. Dugald sat in one of the richly embroidered chairs, with the graceful ease so natural to him in any society, while directly opposite, in a large arm-chair with a cushion beneath her feet, sat the countess. An air of haughty indifference was meant, perhaps, to check the young man’s hopes, for well did the proud lady know the object of his long journey, and sorely did she tremble lest her plans should yet be defeated. Leaning carelessly on a massive table close by, with an air that affected to be contemptuously easy, while the working of his fine features betrayed an inward conflict, stood Sir Frederic.
“I assure you, sir, Lady Adela is too much indisposed to see any one this evening,” were the first words that the trembling girl heard.
“Oh, if she is ill, lady, do not refuse to let me see her. Surely, surely, news from home would do her good—oh, never was she too ill yet to see Dugald!
“Only let me see her for a moment—let me hear from her own lips that she has forgotten us.” And the young man grew eloquent as he pictured in the simple language of exquisite pathos, the more touching as it came every word from a full heart, the distress of those who loved and watched for their absent one till their hearts grew faint within them. He told of their bitter disappointments—their home now over-shadowed because the sunbeam that once lighted it was gone. He spoke not of his own feelings for they were too sacred to be displayed before the cold natures that listened unmoved even now—and Dugald ceased with a sinking heart as he watched their haughty brows grow darker with suppressed anger.
The countess rose and with a frigid salutation left the room, and her son, with an expression of withering scorn, demanded how he dared to expect that his cousin remembered or wished to know aught of such low associations—then followed his mother, leaving Dugald stunned and motionless.
In those few brief moments the evil spirit had departed from Ally’s misguided soul and the good regained its influence over her.