EPILOGUE.

"Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
The fatal shadows that walk by us still."

Beaumont.


Far up on the east coast of Scotland, where the huge breakers of the
Atlantic dash in angry tumult against the granite crags of that rugged
shore, stands the castle of Dunmorton, a grim historic pile.

For generations it has been the home of the McAllisters, and is still
little changed since the days of Bruce and Balliol, when armed men issued
from the low, arched doorway, to work destruction on their enemies of the
South.

The last of the race dwells there now; a man yet in the prime of life,
though one who takes but little interest in the doings of the busy world.
He leads a melancholy and purposeless existence, and seems, as the years
go on, to grow more morbid. Some say that he never got over the shock of
his wife's sudden death, and that the terrible accident completely
shattered his nerves. Others, chiefly, old wives, who have lived on the
estate for years, and are deeply versed in all matters connected with
their chief's family, shake their heads wisely, and mutter that there
is a curse overhanging this branch of the clan. They say it has been
so since the '45, when The McAllister of that day turned his son Ivan
adrift.