Time, the great physician, he hoped, would mend all.
In a postscript, Sir William said something more explicitly, which seemed to intimate that, rather than the law of Scotland should sustain a severe wound through his sides, by a reversal of the judgment of her supreme courts, in the case of the barony of Ravenswood, through the intervention of what, with all submission, he must term a foreign court of appeal, he himself would extrajudically consent to considerable sacrifices.
From Lucy Ashton, by some unknown conveyance, the Master received the following lines: "I received yours, but it was at the utmost risk; do not attempt to write again till better times.

I am sore beset, but I will be true to my word, while the exercise of my reason is vouchsafed to me.

That you are happy and prosperous is some consolation, and my situation requires it all." The note was signed "L.A." This letter filled Ravenswood with the most lively alarm.

He made many attempts, notwithstanding her prohibition, to convey letters to Miss Ashton, and even to obtain an interview; but his plans were frustrated, and he had only the mortification to learn that anxious and effectual precautions had been taken to prevent the possibility of their correspondence.

The Master was the more distressed by these circumstances, as it became impossible to delay his departure from Scotland, upon the important mission which had been confided to him.
Before his departure, he put Sir William Ashton's letter into the hands of the Marquis of A----, who observed with a smile, that Sir William's day of grace was past, and that he had now to learn which side of the hedge the sun had got to.