It will perhaps be best that you should read, first of all, this paragraph.' And he handed over to me a newspaper.
The paragraph in question was brief.

It announced the recapture of one of the prisoners recently escaped from Edinburgh Castle; gave his name, Clausel, and added that he had entered into the particulars of the recent revolting murder in the Castle, and denounced the murderer:-- 'It is a common soldier called Champdivers, who had himself escaped, and is in all probability involved in the common fate of his comrades.

In spite of the activity along all the Forth and the East Coast, nothing has yet been seen of the sloop which these desperadoes seized at Grangemouth, and it is now almost certain that they have found a watery grave.' At the reading of this paragraph, my heart turned over.

In a moment I saw my castle in the air ruined; myself changed from a mere military fugitive into a hunted murderer, fleeing from the gallows; my love, which had a moment since appeared so near to me, blotted from the field of possibility.

Despair, which was my first sentiment, did not, however, endure for more than a moment.