The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 715
The laird was not a man addicted to emotional dis-
plays, but the cruelty of the bereavement, as he construed
the situation, quite overcame him—he wept.
There was one in the Castle whose grief was still deeper
than the well of tears. Having overcome the more violent
manifestations of his sorrow, David walked about, or sat,
as a man labouring under some heinous dream. Before
evening fell, he had thrice secretly visited the chamber of
death to convince himself of its grim reality.
Flora lay with a smile on her cold lips, an expression
of happiness haunting every feature ; a hundred-fold more
lovely in that cold, statuesque condition, than when the life-
blood coursed through her veins and mantled her cheeks.
David had never seen death before ; he could not have
seen it under auspices less suggestive of its terrors. He
gazed upon the picture as one fascinated. Then an impulse
would come upon him to imprint a kiss upon her finely
chiselled marble-looking brow ; but he resisted the long-
ing. His had not been the right to kiss her in life ; he
would not violate her sanctity in death. Thrice the desire
came upon him with the strength of frenzy, and thrice he
stole away awed at the very thought.
Love, like health, is never destitute of hope. With
Flora beside him, and events drifting as they had been,
David had, in these latter days, enjoyed a feeling of strange
satisfaction. He ceased the effort to crush his love passion;
and his imagination had begun to picture possibilities. To
his brother he had done his duty. So he reasoned. He
had remonstrated with him for neglecting his promised
wife ; but if Flora was to be supplanted by another lady,
might not he aspire to take his brother's place ?
He did not recognise that human nature is not logical
except in its reasoning. With all his acumen, David had
so far failed to understand the emotional anatomy of a
woman who was purely womanly, and not a husband-
hunter. How many do ? In his case, the lesson of a
woman's constancy, even to the heart that is no longer