Day was closing, and the old knotty oaks creaked mournfully in the evening wind: now their October foliage was crisped and brown; the branches of many were bare and leafless, and the voice of the coming winter was heard on the hollow gale; while the fallen leaves and faded flowers, the apparent exhaustion and decay of nature, increased the idea of desolation in her mind, and poor Lilian's heart swelled with the sad thoughts that oppressed it. Seated by the mossy dialstone, resigned to solitude and to sorrow, she yielded to the grief that gradually stole over her, and wept bitterly.
How vividly she recollected all the circumstances of that dear interview, and Walter's last injunction--"Remember the hour beside the fountain, and forget not the 20th of September!" The hour was the same; and the fountain was plashing with the same monotonous sound into the same carved basin, and the voice of Walter seemed to mingle with the echo of the falling water.
"Walter! Walter!" she exclaimed, and, dipping her hands again in the water, pressed to her lips the pledge he had given her at parting--his mother's ring, the only trinket he had ever possessed in the world; and though small its apparent value, it contained a secret that was yet to have a potent influence on the fortunes of both.
On the preservation of that ring depended the life of Walter and the mystery of his birth.
Absence had now rendered more dear to her that love which preference, chance, and congenial taste had previously made the all-absorbing feeling of her heart.
"And he was here with me three weeks ago! Only three weeks! Alas! dear Walter, if years seem to have elapsed since then, what will the time appear before we meet again? Oh, that I had the power of a fairy, to behold him now!" She turned her eyes to the south,--to where, above its thick dark woods, the embattled keep of the Napiers of Merchiston closed the view. There she had last seen the Scottish host winding over the muir, and remembered the last flash of arms in the sunlight as a straggling trooper disappeared over the ridge. Her heart yearned within her, and her agitation increased so much that she reclined against the cold dialstone, and covered her face with her hands.