"
"As--?"
Strickland looked still at the bowl of flowers. "It is known, I think,
that you loved Elspeth Barrow and would have wedded her. And that,
while you were from home, the man who called himself, and was called
by you, your nearest friend, stepped before you--made love to her,
betrayed her--and left her to bear the shame.... I myself know that he
kept you in ignorance, and that, away from here, he let you still
write to him in friendship and answered in that tone.... All know that
she drowned herself because of him, and that you knew naught until you
yourself entered the Kelpie's Pool and found her body and carried her
home.... After that you left the country to find and fight Ian
Rullock. Folk know, too, that he evaded you then. You returned. Then
came this insurrection, and news that he was in Scotland with the
Pretender. You joined the King's forces. Then, after Culloden, you
found the false friend in hiding, in the mountains. The two of you
fought, and, as is often the way, the injurer seemed again to win. You
were dangerously wounded. He fled. Soldiers upon his track found you
lying in your blood. You were carried to Inverness. Dickson and I went
to you, brought you at last home. In the mean time came news that the
man you fought had been taken by the soldiers. I suppose that we have
all had visions of him, in prison, expecting to suffer with other
conspirators.
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