“Thank’ee, Mrs. Rogers.  Noo, please gae awa and leave me my lane.  I’ll ring for ye if I want ye,” said Rose, nervously.

“Very well, ma’am.  I’ll go and see after your breakfast.”

“Oh, onything at a’!  The same as yestreen.  Only gae awa!” exclaimed the excited girl, too deeply moved now even to care what she should eat for breakfast.

When the housekeeper had left her alone she gave way to the emotions of horror and fear which prudence had caused her to restrain in the presence of the woman.  She wept, and sobbed, and cried out, and struck her hands together.  She was, in truth, in an agony of terror.

For now she understood the hidden meaning of her lover’s words, when on the night of the murder he had said to her, under the balcony, “Something will happen to-night that will put all thoughts of marrying and giving in marriage out of the heads of all concerned.”  And she comprehended also how the meaning of the fragmentary conversation she had overheard between her lover and his companion, as they approached her from the house:  “You have brought the curse of Cain upon me.”  “It could not be helped.”  “If the old man had not squealed out,” and so forth.

Sir Lemuel Levison had been robbed and murdered, and she—­Rose Cameron—­had been accessory to the robbery and the murder!  She had lain in wait under the balcony while the burglars went in and slaughtered the old banker, and emptied his money chest.  She had received the booty, and carried it off, and brought it to London.  She had it even then in her possession!

She was liable to discovery, arrest, trial, conviction, execution.

With a cry of intense horror she covered up her head under the bedclothes and shook as with a violent ague.  She had suspected, and indeed, she had known by circumstance and inference, that the money and jewels contained in the bag she had brought from Castle Lone, had been taken from the house, but she had tried to ignore the fact that they had been stolen.  But now the knowledge was forced upon her.

She had been accessory both before and after the facts to the crime of robbery and murder, and she was subject to trial and execution.  It all now seemed like a horrible nightmare, from which she tried in vain to wake.

While she shivered and shook under the bedclothes, the housekeeper came up and opened the door and said: 

“Mr. Scott have come, ma’am.  Will he come up?”

“Ay, bid him come till me at ance!” cried the agitated woman, without uncovering her head.

A few minutes passed and the door opened again and her lover entered the room still wearing his travelling wraps.

“Rose, my lass, what ails you?” he inquired, approaching the bed, and seeing her shaking under the bedclothes.

“It’s in a cauld sweat, I am, frae head to foot,” she answered.

“You have got an ague!  Your teeth are chattering!” said Mr. Scott, stooping over her.