"You asked me if there was no hope. Oh, my Thomas! what would I not give could I venture to answer, yes? But it cannot be! You are young and happy, and will yet be fortunate and beloved: why, then, should I permit so fair an existence to be blighted by the upas-tree of destiny under which I am doomed to languish? You shall not say that I am selfish—you shall not hereafter reproach me for having permitted you to share a burden too great for both of us to carry. You must learn the one great lesson of existence, to submit and to forget!
"I am going far away, to the margin of that inhospitable shore which receives upon its rocks the billows of the unbroken Atlantic—or haply, amongst the remoter isles, I shall listen to the sea-mew's cry. Do not weep for me. Amidst the myriad of bright and glowing things which flutter over the surface of this green creation, let one feeble, choking, overburdened heart be forgotten! Follow me not—seek me not—for, like the mermaid on the approach of the mariner, I should shrink from the face of man into the glassy caverns of the deep.
"Adieu, Thomas, adieu! Say what you will for me to the noble and generous Beerie. Would to heaven that I could send him some token in return for all his kindness! But a good and gallant heart is its own most adequate reward.
"They are putting to the horses—I can hear the rumble of the chariot! Oh, once more, dear friend—alas, too inexpressibly dear!—take my last farewell. Adieu—my heart is breaking as I write the bitter word!—forget me."
"Dorothea."
"Do you wonder at my sorrow now?" said Strachan, as I laid down the passionate epistle.
"Why, no. It is well got up upon the whole, and does credit to the lady's erudition. But I don't see why she should insist so strongly upon eternal separation. Have you no idea whereabouts that aunt of hers may happen to reside?"
"Not the slightest."
"Because, judging from her letter, it must be somewhere about Benbecula or Tiree. I shouldn't even wonder if she had a summer box on St Kilda."