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MARIAN.

Why do you start?

ALICE.

I knew not he was near me.

MALCOLM (in confusion).

I crave your pardon: 't was unwittingly;

I scarcely know myself why I returned.

[Alice opens the letter, whilst Claude and Malcolm stand gazing anxiously on her as she reads it to herself.]

MALCOLM (to Alice, who seems to have come to the conclusion).

Your friends are well, I hope; all's well in Glasgow?

ALICE.

She says a deadly fever rages there,

And nought is seen along their dismal streets
But funeral processions; nothing heard
But death-bells tolling, and the hammer's sound
Nailing in haste the corse's narrow house.

MALCOLM (agitated).

And she herself amidst this wreck of life!

ALICE.

She is, ere this, removed from the contagion;

For these concluding lines inform me plainly,
That she and all her family were prepared