'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim!' All the dignity and
authority of her long womanhood returned in the impressive air with
which she spoke. 'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim! It's no
for young ladies to be sending sic messages to a gentleman, when he
hasna so much as said the word "love."'

Had he ever said the word 'love,' this Kinnaird, whose memory was a
living presence in the chamber of slow death? The minister believed that
he had not. There was no annal in the family letters of his name,
although other rejected suitors were mentioned freely. Had he told his
love by look or gesture, and left it unspoken, or had look and gesture
been misunderstood, and the whole slight love-story been born where it
had died, in the heart of the maiden? 'Where it had died!'--it had not
died. Seventy years had passed, and the love-story was presently
enacting itself, as all past and all future must for ever be enacting to
beings for whom time is not. Then, too, where was he who, by some means,
whether of his own volition or not, had become so much a part of the
pulsing life of a young girl that, when all else of life passed from her
with the weight of years, her heart still remained obedient to him?
Where was he? Had his life gone out like the flame of a candle when it
is blown? Or, if he was anywhere in the universe of living spirits, was
he conscious of the power which he was wielding? Was it a triumph to
him to know that he had come, gay and debonair, in the bloom of his
youth, into this long-existing sanctuary of home, and set aside, with a
wave of his hand, husband, children, and friends, dead and living?

Whatever might be the psychical aspects of the case, one thing was
certain, that the influence of Kinnaird--Kinnaird alone of all those who
had entered into relations with the lady--was useful at this time to
come between her and the distressing symptoms that would have resulted