acting under her direction, had made her services extremely useful during this wild campaign.  And most readily had these services been rendered to friend and foe, wherever they could be most useful.  She was now in an apartment of the castle, anxiously superintending the preparation of vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the wounded; receiving reports from different females respecting those under their separate charge, and distributing what means she had for their relief, when Allan M’Aulay suddenly entered the apartment.  She started, for she had heard that he had left the camp upon a distant mission; and, however accustomed she was to the gloom of his countenance, it seemed at present to have even a darker shade than usual.  He stood before her perfectly silent, and she felt the necessity of being the first to speak.

“I thought,” she said, with some effort, “you had already set out.”

“My companion awaits me,” said Allan; “I go instantly.”  Yet still he stood before her, and held her by the arm, with a pressure which, though insufficient to give her pain, made her sensible of his great personal strength, his hand closing on her like the gripe of a manacle.

“Shall I take the harp?” she said, in a timid voice; “is—­is the shadow falling upon you?”

Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment, which commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its horrors.  It was thick spread with dead and wounded, and the spoilers were busy tearing the clothes from the victims of war and feudal ambition, with as much indifference as if they had not been of the same species, and themselves exposed, perhaps to-morrow, to the same fate.

“Does the sight please you?” said M’Aulay.

“It is hideous!” said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands; “how can you bid me look upon it?”

“You must be inured to it,” said he, “if you remain with this destined host—­you will soon have to search such a field for my brother’s corpse—­for Menteith’s—­for mine—–­but that will be a more indifferent task—­You do not love me!”

“This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness,” said Annot, weeping.  “You are my brother—­my preserver—­my protector—­and can I then but love you?—­But your hour of darkness is approaching, let me fetch my harp—­”

“Remain,” said Allan, still holding her fast; “be my visions from heaven or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits—­or be they, as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the visible world.—­You love not me, Annot—­you love Menteith—­by him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses which encumber yonder heath.”

It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new information to her who was thus addressed.  No woman ever lived who could not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long since the state of her lover’s mind.  But by thus suddenly tearing off the veil, thin as it was, Allan prepared her to expect consequences violent in proportion to the enthusiasm of his character.  She made an effort to repel the charge he had stated.