While musing upon the cause of this contradictory spirit in persons whose
conduct intimated no purpose of plunder, and who, in all other points,
appeared to consult his welfare and his wishes, it occurred to our hero
that, during the worst crisis of his illness, a female figure, younger
than his old Highland nurse, had appeared to flit around his couch. Of
this, indeed, he had but a very indistinct recollection, but his
suspicions were confirmed when, attentively listening, he often heard, in
the course of the day, the voice of another female conversing in whispers
with his attendant. Who could it be? And why should she apparently desire
concealment? Fancy immediately aroused herself and turned to Flora
Mac-Ivor. But after a short conflict between his eager desire to believe
she was in his neighbourhood, guarding, like an angel of mercy, the couch
of his sickness, Waverley was compelled to conclude that his conjecture
was altogether improbable; since, to suppose she had left her
comparatively safe situation at Glennaquoich to descend into the Low
Country, now the seat of civil war, and to inhabit such a lurking-place
as this, was a thing hardly to be imagined.
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