The words carried the old sound, and she started and shook.

“Mary,” he continued, “Will Halket still lives.  He was betrayed, as you have been betrayed.  He wrote three letters to you, all of which were kept back by his master, for fear of losing one who he saw would be useful to him; and, to complete the conspiracy, he reported you dead upon the authority of Peter Ramsay.  Whereupon Will betook himself to the making of money; but he never forgot his Mary, whose name has been heard as often as the song of the birds in the groves of Virginia.”

“Ah, you are Will himself!” cried she.  “I ken now the sound o’ your voice in the word ‘Mary,’ even as you used to whisper it in my ear in the fields at St. Leonard’s.  Let me put my hand upon your head, and move my fingers ower your face.  Yes, yes.  Oh, mercy, merciful God, how can my poor worn heart bear a’ this!”

“Mary, my dear Mary!” ejaculated the moved man, “come to my bosom and let me press you to my heart; for this is the only blissful moment I have enjoyed for sixty years.”

Nor was Mary deaf to his entreaties, for she resigned herself as in a swoon to an embrace, which an excess of emotion, working on the shrivelled heart and the wasted form, probably prevented her from feeling.

“But, oh, Willie!” she cried, “a life’s love lost; a lost life on both our sides.”

“Not altogether,” rejoined he, in the midst of their mutual sobs.  “It may be—­nay, it is—­that our sands are nearly run.  Yea, a rude shake would empty the glass, so weak and wasted are both of us; but still there are a few grains to pass, and they shall be made golden.  You are the only living creature in all this world I have any care for.  More thousands of pounds than you ever dreamt of are mine, and will be yours.  We will be married even yet, not as the young marry, but as those marry who may look to their knowing each other as husband and wife in heaven, where there are no cruel, interested men to keep them asunder; and for the short time we are here you shall ride in your carriage as a lady, and be attended by servants; nor shall a rude breath of wind blow upon you which it is in the power of man to save you from.”

“Ower late, Willie, ower late,” sighed the exhausted woman, as she still lay in his arms.  “But if all this should please my Will—­I canna use another name, though you are now a gentleman—­I will do even as you list, and that which has been by a cruel fate denied us here we may share in heaven.”

“And who shall witness this strange marriage?” said he.  “There is no one in Edinburgh now that I know or knows me.  Has any one ever been kind to you?”

“Few, few indeed,” answered she.  “I can count only three.”

“I must know these wonderful exceptions,” said he, as he made an attempt at a grim smile; “for those who have done a service to Mary Brown have done a double service to me.  I will make every shilling they have given you a hundred pounds.  Tell me their names.”