"
"Nor wrote you?" said Halket.
"No, never," replied she; "I would hae gien the world for a scrape o'
the pen o' Will Halket; but it's a' past now, and I fancy he is dead and
gone to whaur there is neither plighted troth, nor marriage, nor giving
in marriage; and my time, too, will be short."
A light broke in upon the mind of Halket, carrying the suspicion that
Mr. Dreghorn had, for the sake of keeping him at Peach Grove, never
forwarded the letters, whereto many circumstances tended.
"And what did you do when you found Will had proved false?" inquired
Halket. "Why should that have been your ruin?"
"Because my puir heart was bound up in him," said she, "and I never
could look upon another man. Then what could a puir woman do? My mother
died, and I came here to work as she wrought--ay, fifty years ago, and
my reward has been the puir boon o' the parish bread; ay, and waur than
a' the rest, blindness."
"Mary!" said Halket, as he took her emaciated hand into his, scarcely
less emaciated, and divested of the genial warmth.
The words carried the old sound, and she started and shook.
"Mary," he continued, "Will Halket still lives.
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