Hatter's Castle

"What could you do?" cried Nessie. "You talk as if it was better for you to stand up to Father than for me to win the Latta."

Mary did not reply to this ungracious speech but stood silent, soothing Nessie by gentle movements of her hands, until at last the other's sobs ceased and, drying her eyes, she remarked with a sudden composure:

"I don't know what we're goin' on about, running around in a circle like that. We've been talkin' nonsense. Of course I'll win the Latta and that's the end of it!"

"That's right, dear," returned Mary, happy to see the other more tranquil. "I know you will. Have you got on well to-day?"

"Splendid!" replied Nessie, in a constrained manner, strangely at variance with her words. "Like a house on fire. I don't know what came over me then. You'll not think any more about what I said, will you, Mary?" she continued in a persuasive voice. "Don't say a word about it to any one! I wouldn't like Father

to hear I had been so silly. Why, I'm as sure of the Bursary as I am of finishing this milk," and she emptied the remains of the milk at a gulp.

"You'll know I'll say nothing," answered Mary, looking at her sister perplexedly, considering with some degree of wonder this sudden change in her manner and disposition. Did Nessie really think that she would succeed, or was this attitude assumed to conceal a deeper and more secret fear that she might fail? Thinking anxiously of the immediate future that lay before her sister, Mary said slowly:

"You'll be sure to let me know the result before Father, won't you, Nessie? Let me know whenever it comes out."

"Of course I will," replied the other with a continuance of the same manner, but directing her eyes from her sister and looking sideways out of the window. "We'll not know till a fortnight after the examination."

"You're sure now," insisted Mary. "Say that we'll open the letter together."

"Yes! Yes!" cried Nessie fretfully. "Have I not told you that I would long ago. You can open it yourself, for all I care. I've promised you and I'll not break my word. You should be letting me get on instead of harping about that."

Again Mary surveyed her sister with some uneasiness, realising how unlike her usual clinging, artless mildness was this petulant assumption of assurance, but although she felt troubled in her mind, she decided that this must be the result simply of a natural anxiety at the nearness of the examination and she said gently:

"I'll go and let you get on then, dear! But please don't tire yourself out too much. I'm anxious for you." Then, as she picked up the empty tumbler and retreated to the door, she said tentatively: "You're sure you wouldn't like to come out for a few minutes? I'm going out for my walk now."

"No," cried Nessic, with a vehement shake of her head, "I'll not bother about it. I'll get on well and I'll be as right as the mail." She smiled at Mary with a curious complacency she who a moment ago had been shaken by bitter sobs and whose invariable attitude towards her sister was one of utter dependency. "Away and have your walk, woman!" she added. "I want to have a quiet think to myself."

"About the Euclid?" said Mary doubtfully, from the door.

"Ay! About the Euclid," cried Nessie, with a short laugh. "Away and don't bother me."

Mary shut the parlour door and, as the kitchen was closed to her by its consecration to Brodie's sleep, went slowly up to her room, still bearing in her hand the tumbler which had contained Nessie's milk. She gazed at this empty glass, trying to comfort herself by the recollection of all the care which she had lately bestowed upon her sister, of the additional nourishment which she had obtained for her and induced her to take; but in spite of the reassuring nature of her thoughts she sighed, unable to dismiss from her mind the sudden outburst which had recently occurred, and in which she thought she detected still some evidence of that lack of balance which, since her return, had troubled her in Nessie. While she put on her hat and gloves to take her customary walk, she determined to maintain a closer and more careful observation upon her sister during the climax of Nessie's endeavours, which would be manifested during the coming week.

Outside, the air was warm and still, and the street deserted to that quietude which induced her on Sundays to take her stroll invariably in the afternoon, rather than in the evening, when the same road was crowded By promenading couples. At this time, too, she felt safe in the knowledge that with Brodie asleep Nessie would be immune from his hectoring attention for an hour or two, and this assurance gave her a sense of freedom which now she rarely experienced. She proceeded to the head of the road and chose, to-day, the left-hand turn, which led directly towards the distant Winton Hills that stood away from her, rendered more remote by the shimmering haze of heat which almost veiled them. This haze lay also upon the roadway, rising in faint vibrations of the air like a mirage and giving the illusion of pools of water lying wetly at a distance upon the path in front of her. But there was no wetness; everything was dry with

dust which soon covered her shoes with a white, impalpable powder and stirred in little puffs about her skirt with every step she took. The day was delicious, the country lying in a basking warmth, but it was not the hour for walking and soon the small, front curl which defied always the severity of her brush lay wisping damply against the whiteness of her brow; her paces dwindled and she felt tired With her tiredness came a returning consciousness of Nessie's strange

manner to her earlier in the afternoon, the heat all at once became overpowering, and she had made up her mind to turn back towards home when, suddenly, she observed a dogcart coming rapidly in her direction along the road. Immediately, she perceived the nature of the vehicle and the identity of the driver and, in a quick flutter of confusion, she made to turn and retreat, halted, stood indecisively for a moment, looking this way and that as though seeking some place of concealment; then, realising perhaps the futility of flight, she lowered her head and walked rapidly to meet it. As she progressed, she made every effort to compose her features, hoping that she would pass without being observed, but, to her growing agitation, though she observed nothing, she heard the crunching of the advancing wheels gradually subside and come to a halt beside her, heard Renwick's voice saying:

"Good day to you Miss Brodie!"

She felt it impossible for her to look up to disclose, in her face, the revealing turmoil of her feelings as, thinking unhappily that she was now Miss Brodie to him and not Miss Mary, or even Mary, she stammered out an acknowledgment of his greeting.

"It's a wonderful day," he exclaimed cheerily. "Quite perfect; but it's too hot to be on foot. It must be like crossing the Sahara to walk to-day."

Had he, she asked herself, observed her hot face and the dust upon her boots which must give her the appearance of some dishevelled and disreputable tramp!

"I ought to say, in politeness, that it's a coincidence our meeting here," he continued, "but that's hardly so. I was aware that you took this walk on Sundays when I drove out here to-day. I wanted to know about Nessie."

How wonderful his words would have been without that last explanatory sentence, but as she stood foolishly with downcast head, she became aware that she must say something in reply or he would consider that she was stupid or uncouth, or both; with a great effort she slowly lifted her eyes to his, thought instantly, despite her embarrassment, how clean cut was his dark, eager face against the background of the sky and murmured feebly, irrelevantly:

"I haven't been able to tell you about Nessie. I haven't seen you for a long time."

"Far too long," he cried; "and it's been of your own seeking. I haven't seen you about for weeks. I thought you had flown again from Levenford without bidding me good-bye."

"I'm here for good now," she replied slowly. "It's you that will be saying good-bye to Levenford soon."

His face clouded slightly.

"Yes! It's only another fortnight now. How time flies like an arrow in its flight." He sighed. "It's curious, but as the day draws near, I'm losing interest in the prospect. I was glad to think of going at first, but this old town has its grip on me after all."

"You've so many friends now, I suppose."

"That's it! I've got friends."

He played idly with his whip, his eyes fixed unseeingly upon the twitching ears of the horse, then he looked at her seriously and said,

"Arc you free to come for a drive with me, Miss Brodie? I may not see you again and I rather wished to talk to you about one or two matters. Do come if you would care to!"

Of course she would care to come and, thinking of her father resting until five, she realised that no more propitious hour could have been chosen; still, she hesitated and replied:

"I'm I'm not dressed for driving and I should have to be back at five, and "

"And in that case you're coming," he answered, with a smile, stretching out his hand. "We've got a good hour and a half. As for your dress, it's too good for this old trap of mine."

She was up beside him almost before she knew how, seated close to him on the red velvet cushion, and he had tucked the light, dust cover around her, touched up the horse and she was off with him, gliding forward in an easy yet exhilarating movement. The breeze of their progress through the still air fanned her cheek, the sky lost its glare and became halcyon, the dust was nothing merely a soft powder to ease the horse's stepping gait and after the tedium and fatigue of walking, she was content to sit silent, happy, watching the vivid countryside flit gently past her. But though she was too conscious of his nearness to look upon him, out of the corner of her gaze she observed the smooth, soft leather of his hand-sewn driving gloves, the silver-plated harness, the monogrammed dust

cover, the smart appointments of what he had designated his "old trap", and again, as in his house, she was seized by a feeling of the difference between his life and hers. Now, whatever his early struggles might have been, the manner of his life did not comprise the weighing of every farthing before it was spent, the wearing of clothes until they disintegrated, the stifling of every pleasurable impulse outwith the sphere of a most rigid economy. But she suppressed this rising sense of her inferiority, stifled her thoughts of future sadness and, telling herself that she would not mar her solitary hour of this unusual luxury, abandoned herself to the unfamiliar delight of enjoying herself.

Renwick, on his part, observed her clear profile, the faint colour stirring in her soft cheek, her unwonted animation, with a strange satisfaction, a sense of pleasure more acute than that with which she viewed the countryside. A sudden pressing whim took him to make her turn to him so that he might see into her eyes, and he broke the silence, saying:

"You are not sorry you came."

But still she did not look at him, although her lips curved in a faint smile as she answered:

"I'm glad I came. It's all so wonderful to me. I'm not used to this and I'll be able to look back on it."

"We'll have time to drive up to the Loch shore," he replied pleasantly, "and, if Tim steps out, time for tea there as well."

She was enchanted by the prospect which he proposed and, considering Tim's smoothly groomed back, hoped that he would hasten sufficiently for tea without going so fast as to hurry her home before time.

"Tim," she remarked idly; "what a good name for a horse."

"And a good horse he is too," he replied, calling out in a louder tone, "aren't you, Timmy?"

Tim pricked up his ears at the words and, as though he appreciated them, put a little more mettle into his measured jog trot.

"You see?" Ren wick continued, watching with approval her smile. "He knows that I'm talking about him and is trying not to blush the wretched hypocrite. He'll be lazier than ever in Edinburgh. Too many oats and not enough exercise!"

"You're taking him with you then?" she queried.

"Yes. I couldn't sell Timmy. I'm like that somehow." He paused, then continued meditatively, "It's a ridiculous trait in me, but when I've become fond of a thing I can't let it go pictures, books, a horse it's the same in every case. When I like a thing I like it. I'm obstinate. I accept no standard of judgment but my own. A critic may tell me a dozen times that such a picture is good, but if I don't like it I won't have it. I take a picture that I do like; then, when it's grown upon me, I can't bear to part with it."

She looked straight in front of her and remarked:

"That was an exquisite picture in your dining room."

"Yes," he replied authoritatively, "that is a fine thing I'm glad you liked it. It's company to me, that picture. I bought it at the Institute." Then he added slyly, "It's not exclusively my taste though the critics liked it too."

The memory of the picture brought before her mind the purpose of her first visit to him and, anticipating his interrogation regarding Nessie, she said:

"I'm grateful for all that you've done about Nessie. You have been more than kind to us both." She had never told him about the tragedy of the grapes, and his favours, these fortunately undiscovered, had continued.

"I wanted to help you," he replied. "How is she getting along under all the work?"

"She seems better in her health," she answered, with a trace of anxiety in her voice, "but she varies so much. At times she is quite peculiar to me. She's worrying about the nearness of her examination. It's on Saturday. I've done everything I can for her."

"I know you have everything," he said reassuringly. "Now that she's gone so far without breaking down, she ought to be all right! I hope she gets the thing, for her own sake." Then, after a considerable silence, he remarked in a serious tone, "I should keep near to her when the results come to hand; and if you want me, call on me at once."

She was aware that he would be gone when the result was announced, but, feeling that already he had done enough for her, she made no comment and remained silent, engrossed by her thoughts. As he had said, Nessie would be all right! She would see to that. She would be with her watch her, protect her, safeguard her, should she be unsuccessful, from any sudden action of her father.

She was aroused from her meditation, from this strengthening of her resolution, by his voice.

"They've widened the road here. We can get through quite easily and it's cooler than the other way." Looking up, she was overcome to see that t unconscious of its significance for her, he had branched off the main road and taken that very passage through the fir wood where she had lost herself upon the night of the storm. With a set, startled face she gazed at the wood as it again enclosed her, not now rocking and surging to the passion of the gale nor crashing with the thunder of uprooting trees, but quiet, appeased, passive with a serene tranquillity. The bright sunbeams stole amongst the sombre foliage of the dark trees, softening them, encrusting their rough branches with gold, and tracing upon their straight, dry trunks a gaily fretted pattern of shimmering, light and shadow. As she passed, in her present comfort and security, through the wood, she was stricken by the incredible memory of her own tortured figure, filled then with her living child, rushing blindly through the darkness, staggering, falling, transfixing her hand upon the sharp spear of the branch, beset by mad voices, unseen, unheard.

A tear trembled upon the brink of her humid eye but, clenching her fingers tightly over the long cicatrix upon her palm as though to fortify herself with the remembrance of her endurance then, she refused to let it fall and instead turned her gaze, as they emerged from the wood, down into the distant valley. Yes! There was the croft where she had lain in her extremity! It stood against the smooth green of the lush meadow land, adjoined by the small shed which had contained her anguished body, its white walls rising squarely to its yellow thatched roof, the smoke rising straight from its single chimney like a long, blue ribbon lifting itself tenuously to the sky.

With a wrench she withdrew her eyes and, holding her body tense in the effort to control her emotion, looked straight ahead, whilst Tim's ears blurred and wavered before her swimming gaze. Renwick, perceiving, perhaps instinctively, that some sudden sadness had induced her silence, did not speak for a long time, but as they swept over the crest of Markinch Hill and the placid, smoothly shining sheet of the Loch was revealed stretching below them, he remarked quietly:

"There's beauty and serenity for you."

It was an exquisite sight. The water, bearing the deep, brilliant blue of the unclouded sky, lay cool and unruffled as a sheet of virgin ice from whose edges the steep and richly wooded slopes of the hills reached back and upwards to the sharp, ridged mountains beyond. Breaking the surface of this still expanse were a series of small islands lying upon the bosom of the Loch like a chain of precious emeralds, green and wooded like the banks, and each mirrored with such perfection that it was impossible for the eyys to distinguish between the islet and its reflection. Upon the shore nearest to them stood a small hamlet, its aggregation of cottages showing whitely against the vivid background of blue and green, and now Ren wick pointed to it significantly.

"There's Markinch which means tea for you, Mary! Don't let the grandeur of nature spoil your appetite."

Her face, that was serene and beautiful as the surface of the lake, responded to his words, and she smiled with a faint, returning glow of happiness. He had called her Mary!

They descended the winding hill to Markinch where, disdaining the small, somewhat ineffectual inn which stood at the head of the village, Renwick drove on to the last cottage of the row that fringed the shore of the Loch, and with a wise look towards Mary, jumped out and knocked upon the door. The cottage was in perfect harmony with the surrounding beauty, its white walls splashed by the rich yellows of nasturtiums, its green porch embowered by red rambler roses, its garden fragrant with the poignant scent of mignonette such a cottage, indeed, as she had once visioned for herself in Garshake; and to the door of this small house came a small, bent body of a woman who now lifted her hands and cried delightedly:

"Doctor! Doctor! It's not yourself? Guidsakes alive! Is it you, yourself?"

"Indeed it is, Janet," cried Renwick, in her own tone. "It is I myself, and a young lady herself. And the two of us, ourselves, are fair famished from our drive. If we don't get one of your lovely teas, with your own scones and jam and butter and heaven knows a' what, then we'll just sadly fade awa' and never come back."

"Ye'd no' do that, though," cried Janet vigorously. "Na, na! Ye'll have the finest tea in Markinch inside five minutes."

"Can we have it in the garden, Janet?"

"Of course ye can, Doctor! Ye can have it on the roof o' my cottage, gin ye say the word."

"The garden will do, Janet," replied Renwick with a smile. "And Janet! Let the wee lad look after Tim. And give us a call when you're ready. We'll go along the shore a bit."

"Right! Right, Doctor! Ye've only to say the word," answered Janet eagerly, and as she departed to do his bidding, he turned and came back to Mary.

"Shall we go a little way along?" he asked; and at her assent he assisted her from her seat to the ground, saying:

"Janet won't keep us waiting five minutes, but you may as well stretch your legs. You must be cramped from sitting."

How delighted the old woman had been to see him, thought Mary, and like all who were in contact with him, how eager to rush to serve him! Thinking of this, as they proceeded along the fine firm shingle of the shore, she remarked:

"Janet's an old friend of yours! Her eye actually leaped when she saw you."

"I did something for a son of hers in Levenford once," he replied lightly. "She's a sweet, old soul with a tongue like an energetic magpie," here he looked at her across his nose, adding "but better than that, she makes delicious scones. You must eat exactly seven of them."

"Why seven?" she queried.

"It's a lucky number," he answered, "and just the right amount of scone food for a healthy, hungry young lady." He looked at her critically. "I wish I had the dieting of you, Miss Mary. There's a sad loveliness in that faint hollow of your cheek, but it means that you've been neglecting your butter and milk. I'll wager you gave all those things I sent you to that wee Nessie of yours."

She blushed.

"No! I didn't really! It was good of you to send them to us.”

He shook his head compassionately.

"Will you ever think of yourself, Mary Brodie ? It hurts me to think what will come of you when I'm away. You want some one to keep a severe and stern eye upon you, to make you look after yourself. Will you write to me and tell me how you Ye behaving?"

"Yes," she said slowly, as though a faint coldness had risen to her from the still water beside them, "I'll write when you've gone!"

"That's right," he cried cheerfully. "I'll regard that as a definite promise on your part."

Now they stood looking out upon the sublime tranquillity of the view before them, that seemed to her so remote from the troubled existence within her home, so exalted above the ordinary level of her life. She was overcome by its appeal and, released by the perception of this beauty, all her suppressed feeling for this man by her side swept over her. She was drawn to him with a deeper and more moving emotion than that which had once stirred her; she wished blindly to show her devotion, visibly to demonstrate her homage to him; but she could not and was compelled to remain quiet by his side, torn by the beating qf her straining heart. The faint murmur of the Loch, as it scarcely lapped its shore, swept across the quietude of the scene, whispering to her who and what she was, that she was Mary Brodie, the mother of an illegitimate child, and echoing in her ears in endless repetition that word with which her father had condemned her when he hurled her from the house upon the night of the storm.

"I hear Janet's cracked cow bell," he said at length. "Are you ready for the scones?"

She nodded her head, her throat too full for speech, and as he lightly took her arm to assist her across the shingled beach she was conscious of his touch upon her as more unbearable than any pain which she had ever felt.

"All ready! All ready!" cried Janet, rushing about like a fury. "Table and chairs and everything in the garden for ye, like ye ordered. And the scones are fresh this mornin's bakin'."

"That's fine!" remarked Ren wick, as he seated Mary in her chair and then took his own.

Although his tone had dismissed the old woman, she lingered, and after a full, admiring glance at Mary, moistened her lips and was about to speak when, suddenly observing the look upon Renwick's face, she arrested, with a prodigious effort, the garrulous speech which trembled upon her tongue and turned towards the house.

As she departed, shaking her head and muttering to herself, a slight constraint settled upon Mary and Renwick; although the tea was excellent and the cool of the garden, spiced by the fragrance of the mignonette, delicious, neither appeared quite at ease.

"Janet's an old footer," he said, with an attempt at lightness. "That's a good Scotch word which just suits her. If I'd give her an opening, she'd have deafened us." But after this remark, he fell into an awkward silence which impelled Mary's mind back to that only other occasion in her life when she had sat at table alone with a man, when she had eaten an ice cream in the gaudy atmosphere of Bertorelli's Saloon, when Denis had pressed her foot with his and

charmed her with his gay and sparkling tongue.

How different were her surroundings here, in this cool freshness of the cottage garden filled with the exhaled perfume of a hundred blossoms; how different, too, was her companion, who neither chattered of alluring trips abroad, nor yet, alas, caressed her foot with his. Now, however, he was shaking his head at her.

"You've only eaten two after all," he murmured, looking at her tragically, adding slowly, "and I said seven."

"They're so large," she protested.

"And you're so small but you would be bigger if you did as you were told."

"I always did as you told me in the hospital!"

"Yes," he replied after a pause, "you did, indeed." A heaviness again seemed to settle upon him while his thoughts flew back 'o the vision of her as he had first seen her, with her eyes closed, inanimate, blanched, a broken, uprooted lily. At last he looked at his watch,

then looked at her with a sombre face. "Time's getting along, I'm afraid. Shall we get back?"

"Yes," she whispered, "if you think it is time."

They arose and went out of the sweet seclusion of the garden which might have been made for the enclosure of two ardent lovers without further speech, and when he had helped her into the trap, he returned and paid old Janet.

"I'm not wantin' your siller, Doctor," she skirled. "It's a pleasure to do it for you and the bonnie leddie."

"Here, Janet," he cried, "take it now or I'll be cross with you."

She sensed the faint difference in his mood and, as she took the money, whispered in a humble tone:

"Have I put my foot in't? I'm gey and sorry if I've done that. Or was it the scones that werna to your taste?"

"Everything was all right, Janet splendid." he rejoined, as he mounted into his place. "Good-bye to you."

She waved them a faintly uncomprehending good-bye and, as they disappeared around the bend of the hill, she again shook her head, muttered to herself and reentered her cottage.

They spoke little on the way home, and when he had asked her if she were comfortable, or if she wished the covering of a rug whether she had enjoyed the trip if he should set Tim to a faster pace he relapsed into a silence which grew more oppressive the nearer they approached to Levenford.

The tentacles of her home were opening again to receive her, and when they had enclosed her, Brodie, swollen-eyed and with a parched tongue, would awake morosely from his sleep to demand her immediate attention to his tea; Nessie would require her sympathy and consolation; she would be confronted at once by the innumerable tasks which it was her duty to perform. This brief and unexpected departure from the sadness of her life was nearly over and, though she had enjoyed it exquisitely, an exquisitely painful sorrow now filled her heart as she realised dully that this was probably almost certainly the last time that she would see him.

They were nearly at her gate now, and drawing up a short distance away, he said in an odd voice:

"Well! Here we are back again! It's been very short, hasn't it?”

"Very short," she echoed as she arose from the seat and descended to the ground.

“We should have had longer at Markinch," he said stiffly; then, after a pause, "I may not see you again. I suppose I better say good- bye." They looked at each other a long time and from beneath him, her eyes shone with a faintly suppliant light; then he drew off his glove and extended his hand to her, saying in a strained tone,

"Good-bye."

Mechanically she took his hand and as she felt within her grasp the firm, cool strength of his fingers, that she had so often admired, that had once soothed her tortured body but would never again do so, these fingers she loved devotedly, her feelings suddenly overcame her and, with a sob, she pressed her warm lips fervently against his hand and kissed it, then fled from him down the road and entered her house.

For a moment he looked at his hand incredulously, then raised his head, and, regarding her vanishing figure, made as though to leap out of the trap and follow her; but he did not, and after a long stillness, during which he again gazed at his hand, a strange look entered his eyes, he shook his head sadly, and drawing on his glove, he drove slowly down the road.

IX

"BRING in some more porridge for your sister!" cried out Brodie to Mary in a loud voice. "You could put this in your eye what you've given her. How do you expect her to work on an empty stomach, and to-day of all days?"

"But, Father," protested Nessie weakly, "I asked Mary not to give me so much. I'm to have a switched egg. The thought of more porridge sickens me this morning."

"Tuts, woman! You don't know what's good for ye," replied Brodie. "It's a good job you've got your father to look after ye and see that ye take what's wholesome. Stick into that porridge now! That's the stuff to lie against your ribs and fit ye for what's before ye." And he leant back largely in his chair, surveying with a self-satisfied eye the figure of his younger daughter as, with a faintly trembling spoon, she endeavoured to thrust a few further spoonfuls of porridge between her nervous, unwilling lips. He did not consider that it nauseated her to eat this morning, or that in her anxiety she might have been happier to be left quietly alone, but, in high fettle at the thought that this was the great day, the day of competition for the Latta, he had not departed for the office at his usual hour but remained to sustain and encourage her with his presence. He would, he thought, be a fine one if he could not see his daughter off to take the Latta. Gad! that was not the style of him, though! He had stuck to his task through all these weary months, ay, and seen that she had stuck to hers, with such perfect thoroughness that now he was not the man to spoil the broth for a halfpennyworth of salt. No! He would not go into the office this morning, would not, indeed, go in all day. He would take a whole holiday for the occasion. It was a festival; he had worked for it and, by God! he would enjoy it. A faint grin marked his features at this consideration and) still surveying her with satisfaction, he cried:

"That's right, woman! Take it steady. There's no need for hurry. Your father's behind ye."

"Has she not taken enough now, Father?" ventured Mary, her eyes pleading towards him from out her fine-drawn face. "She's maybe too anxious to eat this morning. I've a beaten egg for her here."

"Take it up, Ness take it up," drawled Brodie, ignoring completely the interruption. "We know what puts the pith into a body. Ye might be downright starved if it wasna for me. I'm not the one to let ye sit through a three hours' examination with nothing inside of ye to stand up to it." He was in his element, reaping the fruits of his labour with her, his vicissitudes forgotten, the stabbing memory of Nancy for the present eased, and, opening his mouth in a broader and more derisive smile, he exclaimed, "Gad! It's joist occurred to me that maybe that snipe o' a Grierson is sittin' at the table, watchin' that whelp o' his stap down his breakfast and wonderin’ what'n all the world he's goin' to make o' himself the day. Ay, it's a rich thought for me." His smile dried up, became bitter. "The Provost o' the Borough, forsooth the fine, easy spokesman o' the town. God! He's lookin' gey small and mean and anxious this mornin', I'll wager." He paused for a moment then, observing that Nessie, who had succeeded in finishing the porridge, was sipping her egg and milk, he cried roughly, as though the bitterness of the thought of Grierson had not quite left him, "Here! Take a scone and butter to that slush if ye will drink it." He glowered at Mary, adding, "Some folks would make a jaw box o' that stomach of yours!" then, returning his glance to Nessie, he continued, in an admonishing tone. "Don't flicker your een like that, woman; you would think that it was a frichtsome business that you were goin' up for to-day, instead o' an easy osey piece of writin' that you've got to do. It's all in your head, waitin' to come out. All that's to do is to take up your pen and write it down. Is that anything to upset ye so that you take a scunner at the good, wholesome porridge?" He reviewed the profound wisdom of his logic blandly, then, as though the absurdity of her nervousness suddenly irritated him, he shot at her questioningly,

"What the de'il is it you're feared of? Are ye not my daughter? What is there in this and about it all to make ye grue like that?"

She thought of the lofty examination hall, filled by the scratching of a score of fiercely competitive pens; she saw the silent, black-gowned figure of the examiner upon his rostrum sitting severe and omnipotent like a judge; she saw her own small, bowed insignificant figure writing feverishly but, veiling her gaze, she replied hurriedly:

"There's nothing I'm afraid of, Father! It's maybe the thought of the journey that's upsetting me a bit. I'm not thinkin' of the Latta at all. They might have posted the result already, for all the good it'll do the others to go up."

He smiled at her again broadly, exclaiming:

"That's more like the spirit! That's more like my daughter! We havena put ye through your paces for nothing. Now that I'm showin' you, ye maun step high when you're in the ring." He paused, pleased by his comparison, which combined with his present elation and the excitement of her departure, reminded him vaguely of those days when he had set out for the Cattle Show, and he cried, "You're on show the day, Nessie, and I'm proud of ye. I know before ye go up who'll come back with the red ticket round her neck. My daughter, Nessie Brodie that's the name that'll be on everybody's lips. We're goin' to startle the town between us. By God! They'll look the other way along their noses when they meet me now. We'll show them!" He considered her fondly, almost admiringly, remarking, after

a moment, "Gad! It fair beats me, when I look at that wee head o' yours and think on all that's in it. Latin and French and mathematics, and heaven knows a' what. And yet it's no bigger than my fist. Ay! It's a true word that good gear gangs in small bulk. It's the quality that counts. It's downright gratify in' for a man to see his own brains comin' out in his daughter; ay, and to be able to give her the opportunity. When I was your age I never had a chance like you."

He sighed commiseratingly. "No! I would have gone far had I been given the chance, but I had to get out into the world and make my own way. There were no Lattas in those days or I would have lifted the whole jing bang o' them." He lifted his eyes to her and exclaimed in an altered, excited tone, "But it'll be different with you, Nessie. You'll have your chance. I'll see to that. You'll see what I'll do for ye when you've won the Latta. I'll I'll I'll push ye on to the highest ye can go." He banged his fist upon the table and considered her triumphantly, adding, "Are ye not pleased with what I'm doin' for ye?"

"Yes, Father," she murmured. "I'm I'm real pleased at it all."

"And I should think so!" he cried. "There's not a man in Levenford would have done what I've done for ye. See that ye don't forget it!

When ye come back with that Latta don't let it fly to your head. Remember who has done it for you!"

She glanced at him timidly, as she remarked in a low voice:

"You're not expecting me to bring it home to-night, Father? It'll be a good while before the result comes out a fortnight, anyway!"

As though she had suddenly baulked him of the keen zest of his enjoyment, his look took on a sudden displeasure.

"Are ye off again on that tack? What's all this goin’ on about results? Do you think I expect ye to bring the money back in a bag? I know it'll come in good time. I know it's for your studies. I'm not just gaspin' for't. But I seem to feel that you Ye gettin' anxious as to whethei you'll get your fingers on it or not."

"Oh! No, Father," she said hastily, "I'm not thinking about that at all. I was just afraid ye might think I would know for sure tonight."

"For sure," he repeated slowly; "are ye not 'for sure' already?"

"Yes! Yes!" she cried. "I'm sure. I'm dead positive about it. I hardly know what I'm saying, I'm so excited at going up to the University."

"Don't let all this grand excitement run awa' with you," he replied warningly. "Remember you Ye sixteen years old now, and if that's not old enough for you to have some control, then you'll never have it. Don't lose your heid, that's all I say! Have ye got a' things that you need your pen and your nibs and your rubber and what not ?"

"I get everything I want up there," she answered meekly. "Everything like that is supplied to us."

"I see! Well, in that case ye canna very well say ye had forgotten your pen." He paused and looked at the clock. "It's gettin' near time for your train. Have ye eaten your fill of everything?"

She felt her stomach turn uneasily as she whispered:

"Yes, Father."

He arose and went over to his pipe rack, remarking complacently:

"Well, I've done my bit of the business, anyway."

As he turned his back, Mary moved nearer to her sister, saying in a low tone, close to Nessie's ear:

"I'll go down to the station with you, Nessie, just to keep you company and see that you get away all right. I'll not worry you by speaking."

"What's that?" cried Brodie, turning like a flash. He had, unfortunately, heard something of her words. "You'll go down to the station, will ye?" he sneered. "Indeed now! That is verra considerate of ye. You'll do this and you'll do that with your interfering the same sleekit way that your mother used to have. Is Nessie not capable of walkin' a few yards by herself, that you must tie a bit of string round her neck and lead her along?" His sneer became a snarl. "Have I not told ye to leave my Nessie alone? You'll go to no station. You’ll do nothing for her. Shell go down by herself." He turned to Nessie. "You don't want her botherin' you, do you, hinny?"

Her eyes fell as she faltered, in a faint voice, "No, Father, not if you say it."

Brodie returned his glance to Mary with a dark insolence.

"You see!" he cried. "She doesna want ye! Keep out of what doesna concern ye. I'll do all that's wanted. I'll get her things for her myself this morning. Here! Nessie! Where's your hat and coat? I'm goin' to see you to the door." He swelled at the thought of the honour he was conferring upon her as she dumbly indicated the sofa where, brushed, sponged and pressed, lay the worn, blue serge jacket of her, every-day wear the only one she now possessed and her straw hat which now bravely flaunted a new satin band bought by her sister and stitched in place by her devoted fingers. He lifted the coat and hat, handed them to her, assisted her even, in the fullness of his service, to assume the coat so that she now stood, a small, indescribably pathetic figure, clothed and ready for her journey. He patted her upon the shoulder with an extravagant flourish, exclaiming, as though he had dressed her fully with his own hands, "There now! you're all set up for the road. Do ye not think it's a great honour for you that

I've taken the day off to see you out like this? Come on and I'll take you to the door."

She was, however, strangely disinclined to move, but remained with her head averted from him, her gaze drawn to Mary's dark and tender eyes, her lower lip drooping slightly, her thin fingers into locked and twisting nervously. The clear skin of her face, denuded of its one-time colour almost to a pale transparency, seemed stretched tightly over the puny framework of her features, its pallor accentuated by the fine-spun sheen of the flaxen hair which, now unplaited invested loosely the small, drawn countenance. She stood inert, realising that the climax of her endeavours was at hand and that she was loath to face it; then, suddenly appearing to forget the presence of her father, she advanced close to Mary and murmured in a low, almost inaudible tone, "I'm not wanting to go, Mary. I've got the band round my brow again. I would rather stay at home." Yet almost in the same breath, as though she were unaware that she had uttered these whispered words, she cried:

"I'm ready then, Father. I've got everything I want. I'm as right as the mail and ready to stick into it."

He stared at her, then relaxed slowly.

"Come on, then, and look sharp about it. What are you moonin' about her for? No more of your silly dawdlin' or you'll miss your train."

"I'll not miss it, Father," she cried eagerly, breaking away from Mary without looking at her as though she had not heard her sister's last murmur of encouragement or the promise to meet her at the station on her return. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "That wouldn't be like me to do a thing like that. I haven't worked all these six months for nothing. What an idea!" She drew back her narrow shoulders and, demonstrating her willingness by passing him and hastening into the hall, she went to the front door and opened it wide. "I'm away then, Father," she cried loudly and in a fashion something after his own manner. "I'll be back when you see me!"

"Hold on a minute," he exclaimed, with a frown, lumbering after her. "I said I was goin' to see ye to the door, did I not! What's come over ye that you're rushing like this." He surveyed her for a moment from beneath his heavy eyebrows, then, reassured by the brightness now manifested in her eyes, he cried, "You'll do, though you've got the look on ye as if ye couldna get to that examination quick enough. Away wi' ye, then. I'll warrant ye'll put your back into it. I've got ye just in the right fettle. Ye canna help but win it now."

He clapped his hands together as though shooing her off, exclaiming, "Off with ye now and put salt on that Grierson's tail."

"Trust me," she returned lightly. "I'll put so much salt on him that I'll pickle him!"

"Good enough," he cried delightedly, following her fondly with his eyes as she went out of the gate and down the road. She did not once look back. As he stood at his door watching her slight figure dwindling into the distance, he was filled momentarily by a powerful return of his old, proud, disdainful complacency. Gad! But she was a smarter, was his Nessie! As clever as you make them, with the sharpness of a needle, a sharpness that would prick that big, swollen bladder of a Grierson until the wind rushed out of him like a burst bagpipe. He had primed her well for the event too, made her as keen as a young greyhound to get out of the leash, and when she had left him just now, there had been a gleam in her eye that had fairly warmed him.

He had done that by his firm handling of the lass, forcing some of his own fire into her blood, filling her with a determination to succeed.

"Stick into it, Nessie!" That had been his slogan and one which was more than justified! She would walk away with the Latta, putting a hundred miles, or marks, or whatever it might be, between Grierson and herself. Grierson might even be last! With a grim smile at the relish of his thoughts, he slowly turned, sniffed the clear air with an added appreciation from his freedom, mounted the steps and went into the house.

Inside he halted aimlessly in the hall, losing something of the first flush of his elation in the realisation that, although it was not yet eleven o'clock and he was to-day a free man, he did not quite know what to do with himself; but after a moment he went into the kitchen and gravitated to his chair, where he sat watching Mary out of the corner of his eye, as she went about her morning tasks.

She made no comment upon his absence from the office and was, as always, quiet and composed, though to-day an added darkness lay in and around the pools of her eyes. In her manner she gave him no indication of the nature of her inward thoughts. He opened his lips to speak to her, to make some scathing comment upon the disparity between Nessie and herself barbed with a bitter innuendo concerning her past history, but he did not utter the words, knowing that whatever he said would be met by the same impenetrable silence. He would not speak yet! She could, he thought, be as dour as she liked and as quiet as she liked, but he knew what was at the back of her mind in spite of all her assumption of indifference. She was after his Nessie, interfering whenever she could, obstructing his intentions, laying herself out slyly at every turn to defeat his purpose. Let her wait though! He too was waiting and if ever she directly opposed him with Nessie, it would be a sad day for her!

As, without appearing to observe her, he followed the smooth, graceful movements of his daughter, an association of ideas confronted him suddenly with the memory of another woman whom he had loved as much as he hated this one Nancy, the ultimate object of his waking, yes, even of his dreaming, mind. Now, however, he

clenched his teeth firmly and shook the obsessing vision of her from his head, determined that nothing should mar the triumph of this day. It was Nessie that he wanted to think of Nessie, his solace who would now be sitting in the train, revolving in her clever brain some of these lessons which he had kept her at so assiduously, or considering, perhaps, the last exhortation he had given her. He had always felt that this would be a great day for him and now he was aware that he must not let himself become depressed, that he must sustain his spirits at that high level to which they had risen earlier in the morning. He would have a drink just to liven him a little.

His eye brightened as he arose from his chair and went to the dresser, where he opened the small cupboard on the left, drew out the familiar black bottle and now kept always in readiness beside it his own small tumbler. With the tumbler in one hand and the bottle in the other, he sat down again in his chair, poured himself out some whisky and at once savoured it gratefully, appreciatively, holding the liquor for a moment between his palate and his tongue. The first drink of the day always passed over his lips with a richer and more satisfying flavour than any other, and now it trickled so warmly down his gullet that he was impelled to follow it quickly by a second. The first had been to himself this would be in honour of Nessie! She might now be out of the train if she followed, as she undoubtedly would, his directions to get out at Partick Station, and might at this very moment be ascending the steep slope of Gilmorehill towards the grey pile of the University on its summit. He was conscious that this noble building, breathing of erudition, was well suited for the holding of the Latta examination, well worthy for the making of his daughter's mark within it. The professors might already have heard of her cleverness in some stray manner, for reports of brilliant scholars were circulated in devious but far-reaching ways in the academic world, and, even if this were not so, she had a name which they would recognise at once, which was a

passport to her, there and anywhere she might choose to go. He drank to the University, to Nessie, and again to the name of Brodie.

This was better! To-day his mind reacted to the whisky in a different manner from that mere dulling of his morose despondency which had lately been the result of his potations; now, the old-time exhilaration of the early days of his toping was returning to him, and as he became aware of this delicious fact, his spirits rose, and he began to cast about in his mind for some channel into which he might direct his new-found animation. It was unconscionably dull for a cheerful man to sit under the sombre eye of his melancholy daughter, and, perceiving that he would have to seek his amusement out of the house, he considered for a moment the idea of visiting the office, not, of course, to work, but merely, in an informal way, to divert those two young sprigs in his room and to tweak the offensive nose of the upstart Blair. Being Saturday, however, it was a half day at the office which meant that they would soon be stopping work and going home and he felt, too, that the occasion demanded a more appropriate celebration than merely a return to the scene of his daily labour. He abandoned this idea with only a faint regret, which vanished completely as he drowned it in another glass of Mountain Dew.

Dew! Dew upon the grass green grass the bowling green! Ah! he had it at last! Who said that there was not inspiration in that famous blend of Teacher which he always favoured? His face lit up with a lively delight at his aptness in remembering that the summer tournament of the Levenford Bowling Club was to be held at the Wellhall Green this afternoon, and he smiled broadly as he considered that all the worthies would be present present for a certainty from wee Johnnie Paxton up to the Lord High Provost Grierson himself.

"Gad!" he muttered, slapping his thigh, in quite his old manner, "that's the ticket, right enough! I'll have them all boxed up in that one place and I'll throw the Latta in their teeth there and then. I'll show them I'm not feared o' them. It's high time I was makin' myself heard again. It strikes me I've been over long about it."

He crowned his satisfaction with a bumper, then, raising his voice, cried:

"Hurry up with my dinner in there. I'm wantin' it quick. I'm goin' out this afternoon and I want something inside of me first. Let it be some decent food too, and none o' that swill ye were foistin' off on Nessie this morning."

"Your dinner's ready, Father," Mary replied quietly. "You can have it now, if you wish."

"I do wish, then," he retorted. "Get on with it and don't stand glumphin' at me like that."

She quickly laid the table and served him with his meal, but though this was to his taste, and indeed infinitely better than any which Nancy had ever prepared for him, he gave neither praise nor thanks. He did justice to it however, and with an appetite stimulated by the whisky, for once ate heartily, dividing his thoughts, as he masticated vigorously, between his plans for the afternoon and the further consideration of Nessie. She would have actually begun the examination by this time and would be sitting driving her pen over page after page of paper whilst the others, and particularly young Grierson, chewed the wooden ends of theirs and stared at her enviously. Now he saw her, having entirely finished one exercise book, rise from her place and, her small, self-conscious face glowing, advance to demand another from the examiner. She had used up one book al-ready, the first in the room to do so Nessie Brodie, his daughter whilst that young snipe Grierson had not even filled half of his yet! He chuckled slightly at her remarkable prowess and bolted his food with an added gusto from the vision of the other's discomfiture. His thoughts ran chiefly in this strain during the rest of the meal and, when he had finished, he arose and drank again, emptying the bottle to the hope that she would require not two, but three books to convey to the professors the wide extent of her knowledge.

It was still too early for his descent upon the Wellhall Bowling Green, for he wished to allow a full congregation of the notables to collect, and realising that he was not yet ripe with the careless rapture best suited to such an adventure, confronted, too, by the mere hollow shell which had held the Mountain Dew, he decided to adventure out and rest himself for an hour in the Wellhall Vaults which conveniently adjoined the Green.

Accordingly, he left the house and proceeded down the road, not however, with the set, morose face and unseeing stare which marked him lately in the streets but, fortified by his mood and the knowledge of his daughter's success, with a freer, easier carriage which again invited inspection. Few people were about as yet, but when he had crossed Railway Road he observed on the other side of the street the stately figure of Doctor Lawrie, not driving, but walking, and immediately he crossed over and accosted him.

"Good day to you, Doctor Lawrie," he cried affably. It had been 'Lawrie' in the old days and without the affability. "I'm pleased to meet ye."

"Good day," returned the other, thinking of his unpaid bill and speaking with the small store of curtness he possessed.

"It's well met for us just now," retorted Brodie. "Well met! Do ye know what's happening at this very moment?"

Lawrie eyed him warily as he uttered a cautious "No."

"My Nessie is up at the University, winning the Latta for me while you and me are talkin' here," cried Brodie. "It's a justification of your own words. Don't ye mind what ye told me, that she had a head on her in a thousand?"

"Indeed! Indeed!" returned Lawrie pompously and with a slight degree of cordiality. "I'm gratified to hear that. Winning the Latta. It all helps. It'll be a little more grist to the mill, I suppose." He looked sideways at the other, hoping that he would take the hint, then suddenly he looked directly at Brodie and exclaimed, "Winning? Did ye say she had won the Latta?"

"It's as good as won," replied Brodie comfortably. "She's at it the now this very minute. I took the day off to see that she got away in the best o' fettle. She went off with a glint in her eye that spoke for victory. She'll fill three books ere she's done!"

"Indeed!" said Lawrie again, and, eyeing the other strangely, he drew insensibly away, remarking, "I'll have to be getting along now an important consultation my horse just cast a shoe along the road there I'm late!"

"Don't go yet, man," remonstrated Brodie, buttonholing the embarrassed Lawrie firmly. "I havena told ye half about my daughter yet. Fm real fond o' that lass, you know. In my own way. Just in my own way. I've wrought hard with her for the last six months."

"Pray let me go, Mr. Brodie," cried Lawrie, struggling to free himself.

"We've burned the midnight oil between us, have Nessie and I," retorted Brodie gravely. "It's been a heap o' work but by gad, it's been worth it!"

"Really, sir," exclaimed Lawrie in a shrill, indignant tone, wrenching himself free and looking around to see if his contact with this ruffianly looking individual had been observed, "you've taken a great liberty! I don't like it! Take care how you address me in future." Then, with a last, outraged look, he reinflated his cheeks and bounced off quickly down the road.

Brodie gazed after him in some amazement. He failed to detect anything in his recent conduct which could have aroused indignation, and finally, with a shake of his head, he turned and resumed his way, reaching without further encounters the haven of the Wellhall Vaults. Here he was not known and he remained silent, but drinking steadily, filling himself with liquor and further visions of his daughter's prowess, until three o'clock. Then he got up, set his hat well back upon his head, drew in his lips and swaggered into the open once more.

The mere step to the Wellhall Green he accomplished with hardly a falter and soon he was inside the trim enclosure where the smooth square of reen lay vivid in the sunshine, marred only by the dark, blurred figures of the players wavering across it before his eye. What a game for grown men, he thought contemptuously; to roll a few balls about like a gang of silly bairns. Could they not take out a gun or a horse, like he had once done, if they wanted their exercise or amusement.

His gaze, however, did not remain long upon the green but, lifting quickly, sought the small group that sat upon the veranda of the pavilion at the further end of the ground, and he smiled with a sardonic gratification as he observed that, even as he had foretold, they were all there from simple John Paxton to the Lord High Provost of the Borough. He gathered himself together again and advanced deliberately towards them.

For a moment he proceeded unobserved by this small gathering for they were all concentrating upon the game before them but suddenly Paxton looked up, observed him, and gasped in amazement:

"Guidsakes Just look what's coming!" His tone drew their attention at once, and following his startled gaze, they too regarded the strange, uncouth, strutting figure as it bore down upon them, and they exclaimed variously:

"Good God! It's Brodie. I ha vena seen him for months!"

"He's as fou as a lord, by the looks o' him."

"Losh! It's the drunken earl himsel'."

"Look at the face o' him and the clothes o' him."

"Ay, but look at the swagger o' the thing!"

They were silent as he drew near, directing their eyes away from him towards the green, disowning him, but still failing to perturb him as, oscillating slightly, he stood encompassing them with his sneer.

"Dear, dear," he snickered, "we're very engrossed in watching the wee, troolin' balls. It's a grand, excitin' pastime. We'll be lookin' on at a game o 1 peever next if we're not careful, like a band o' silly lassies." He paused and queried pertinently, "Who has won, Provost? Will ye tell me you that's such a grand spokesman for the town?"

"This game's not finished yet," replied Grierson after a moment's hesitation, and still with his eyes averted. The spite which he had once entertained against Brodie now found nothing in the other's wretched condition with which to justify itself and seemed suddenly to have evaporated. Besides, was he not the Provost? "Nobody has won yet," he added more affably.

"This game's not won yet," echoed Brodie sardonically. "Well, well! I'm sorry to hear it. But I can tell ye a game that is won!"

He glared round them all and, his anger rising at their indifference, shouted:

"It's the Latta I'm talkin' about. Maybe ye think it's like this rotten game of bowls that you're watchin' not finished yet. But I tell you it is finished finished and done wi' and it's my Nessie that's won it!"

"Hush, man, hush!" exclaimed Gordon, who sat immediately confronted by Brodie. "I can't see the play for ye. Sit down or stand aside and don't blatter the ears off us."

"I'll stand where I like. Shift me if ye can," retorted Brodie dangerously. Then he sneered : "Who are you to talk, anyway? You're only the ex-provost you're not the king o' the castle any more it's our dear friend Grierson that's got your shoes on now and it's him I'm wantin' to speak to." He directed his sneering gaze at Grierson and addressed him: "Did you hear what I said about the Latta,

Provost? No! Dinna start like that I havena forgotten about that braw son o' yours. I know well that he's gone up for it. Provost Grierson's son is up for the Latta. God! It must be as good as in his pocket."

"I never said that yet," replied Grierson, provoked in spite of himself. "My boy can take his chance! It's not as if he was needin' the money for his education, onyway."

Brodie ground his teeth at the sharp implication in the other's careless words and tried fiercely to force his brain to contrive some devastating reply, but as always, when opposing Grierson, he could find no suitable expression of his wrath. The thought that he, who had advanced a moment ago in lordly indifference, had been rendered impotent by a word, goaded him, and, sensing also that he was not creating the impression upon them which he had wished, his temper overcame him and he shouted:

"Why did ye ask me to withdraw my daughter if ye didna want your whelp to win it? answer me that, you sneakin' swine! You stopped me at the Cross and asked me to keep back my Nessie."

"Tuts! Don't shout like that at my ear, man," retorted Grierson coolly. "I don't like the reek o' your breath. I told ye before I was thinkin' of your Nessie. Somebody that's qualified to speak asked me to mention it to ye. I wasna wantin' to do it and now I'm sorry I did mention it."

"You're a liar!" bawled Brodie. "You're a damned mealy-mouthed liar!"

"If ye've come here to force a quarrel on me, I'll not let ye do it," returned Grierson. "There's no lying about the matter and no secret either. Now that your daughter has gone up, I don't mind tellin’ you it was Doctor Renwick asked me to speak to ye."

"Renwick!" exclaimed Brodie incredulously. He paused; then, as a light dawned upon him, he shot out, "I see! I see it plain. You put him up to it. He's hand in glove with you against me. He hates me just as much as do as much as ye all do." He swept his arm blindly around them. "I know you're all against me, you jealous swine, but I don't care. Ill win through. Til trample over ye all yet. Have any of ye got a daughter that can win the Latta? Answer me that!"

"If your daughter does win the Latta," cried some one, "what the de'il does it matter to us? Let her get it and good luck to her. I don't give a tinker's curse who wins it."

Brodie gazed at the speaker.

"Ye don't care?" he replied slowly. "Ye do care you're leein' to me. It'll spite the faces off ye if a Brodie wins the Latta."

"Away home, man, for God's sake," said Gordon quietly. "You're not yourself. You're drivelin'. You can't know what you're sayin'.”

"I'll go when I like," mumbled Brodie. The stimulation of the drink suddenly left him, his fierceness waned, he no longer desired to rush upon Grierson and tear him apart, and, as he gazed at their varying expressions of unconcern and disgust, he began to feel profoundly sorry for himself, to ask himself if this could be the same company which he had dominated and overawed in the past. They had never liked him but he had controlled them by his power, and now that they had escaped from out his grasp, his sympathy towards himself grew so excessive that it reached the point of an exceeding sorrow which sought almost to express itself in tears.

"I see how it is," he muttered gloomily, addressing them at large. "Ye think I'm all over and done wi'. I'm not good enough for ye now. God! If it didna make me laugh, it would make me greet. To think that ye should sit there and look down your noses at me at me that comes of stock that's so high above ye they wouldna even use ye as doormats." He surveyed them each in turn, looking vainly for some sign of encouragement, some indication that he was impressing them. Then, although no sign came, he still continued, more slowly and in a dejected, unconvincing tone:

"Don't think that I'm finished! I'm comin' up again. Ye can't keep a good man down and ye'll not keep me down, however much ye may try. Wait and see what my Nessie will do. That'll show ye that stuff that's in us. That's why I came here. I don't want to know ye. I only wanted to tell ye that Nessie Brodie would win the Latta, and now that I've done it, I'm satisfied!" His moody eye swept them, then finding that he had nothing more to say, that they too were silent, he moved off; yet after a few paces he arrested himself, turned, opened his mouth to speak; but no speech came and at length he lowered his head, swung around, and again shambled off. They let him go without a word.

As he left the confines of the Green and proceeded along the road, nursing bitterly his wounded pride, he suddenly perceived in the distance the dim figures of his two daughters approaching him from the station. He stared at them almost stupidly, at Nessie and Mary Brodie, both of them his children, as though the strange sight of them together in the public street confused him. Then all at once he realised that Nessie was returning from her examination, that Mary had disobeyed him by meeting the train. No matter! He could deal later with Mary, but now he desired urgently to know how Nessie had fared, to appease his wounded vanity in the knowledge of her success, and walking forward quickly, he met them, confronted them in the middle of the pavement. There, absorbing eagerly every detail of the younger girl's tired face, he cried:

"How did ye get on, Nessie? Quick! Tell me was everything all right?"

"Yes," she murmured. "Everything was all right."

"How many books did ye fill? Was it two or three?"

"Books?" she echoed faintly. "I only wrote in one book. Father."

"Only one book!" he exclaimed. "Yc only filled one book for all the time ye've been away." He considered her in astonishment, then, his face slowly hardening, he demanded harshly, "Can ye not speak, woman? Don't ye see I want to know about the Latta. I’m asking you for the last time. Will you tell me once and for all how ye got on?"

With a great effort she controlled herself, looked at him out of her placating eyes and, forcing her pale lips into a smile, cried:

"Splendid, Father! I got on splendid. I couldn't have done better."

He stared down at her for a long time, filled by the recollection of the arrogance with which he had proclaimed her success, then he said slowly, in an odd, strained voice :

"I hope ye have done splendid. I hope so! For if ye haven't, then, by God! it'll be the pity of ye!"

IT WAS the Saturday following that of the examination for the Latta, the time half-past ten in the morning. Nessie Brodie stood looking out of the parlour window with an expression of expectation upon her face mingled, too, by a hidden excitement which made her eyes shine bright and large out of her small face, as though they awaited the appearance of some sudden, thrilling manifestation in the empty roadway that lay before them. The face, despite its ingenuous weakness, wore something of an unguarded look, for the consciousness that she was alone in the room and unobserved allowed a freer and more unrestrained display of these emotions that she had carefully concealed during the course of the past uneasy week. During that week her father's attitude to her had been insupportable, alternating between a fond complacency and a manner so disturbing and threatening that it terrified her; yet she had borne it, comforting herself in the knowledge that she possessed a strategy more subtle, more effective than all his bluster and his bullying. She thought she had won the Latta, had experienced, indeed, with the passage of each of the seven days since the examination, a growing certainty that she had won it. It was impossible that all her work, the compulsory toil, all these long, cold hours of endurance in this same parlour could go unrewarded, and although a feeling of dissatisfaction with her own paper had possessed her when she left the University last week, now her confidence was completely restored; she felt that she must have taken the Bursary to use her father's phrase in her stride. Still, there was always the chance, the faint unreasonable chance, that she might not have been successful! It was unthinkable, impossible, yet it was against this chance that by some strange, astute working of her mind she had so cleverly formulated her precaution. They thought, both Mary and her father, that the result of the Latta would not be announced for another week she had told them so and they had believed her but she knew better than that, knew that the result would reach her this morning. She was expecting it immediately, for the forenoon delivery of letters at eleven o'clock contained the Glasgow mail, and from enquiries which she had made at the University she knew that the results of the examination had been posted to each competitor on the evening of the day before.

She smiled slyly, even now, at the consideration of her own cleverness in deluding them all. It had been a brilliant idea and daring too not unlike the sudden sending of that letter to Mary yet she had accomplished it. Her father had so crushed and oppressed her with the preparation for the examination that she had wanted room to breathe, space to think; and now she had contrived it for herself. It was a triumph. She had a whole week to herself before he would demand threateningly to see the evidence of her success, an entire week during which she could think and cleverly contrive some means of escape from him, should she have failed. But she had not failed she had succeeded and instead of using every moment of that precious week to prepare herself against her father's anger, she would treat it like a hidden happiness, treasuring her secret until she could no longer contain it, then delivering it unexpectedly, triumphantly, upon their astounded ears. They would not know until she enlightened them; nobody must know, not even Mary, who had been so good, so kind and loving to her. Surely she should have told Mary? No! That would have spoiled the entire plan. When she did speak she would tell her first, but now everything must be kept secret and sealed within her own mind; she wanted no one peering over her shoulders when she opened that letter; she must be alone, secluded from prying glances that might watch the trembling of her fingers or the eagerness of her eyes.

As she stood there, suddenly she started and a faint tremor passed over her as she observed an indistinct blue figure at the foot of the road the postman, who would, in the slow regularity of his routine, reach her within the space of half an hour. In half an hour she would be receiving the letter; must, moreover, be alone to receive it undisturbed! With an effort she withdrew her eyes from the distant figure of the postman and involuntarily, almost automatically, turned and advanced to the door, altering her expression so that her features lost their revealing look, became secretive, blank, then drew slowly into a frown. This troubled frown intensified as she entered the kitchen and went up to Mary when, pressing her hand against her brow, she exclaimed wearily:

"That headache is on me again, Mary! Worse than ever this time."

Mary looked at her sister sympathetically.

"My poor, wee Nessie!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry about that! I thought you had got rid of them for good."

"No! No!" cried Nessie. "It's come back. It's hurting me give me one of my powders, quick!"

From under the cover of her hand she watched Mary as she went to the white cardboard box that stood always on the mantelpiece, observed her open the box and discover that it was empty, then heard her exclaim condolingly:

"They're all finished, I'm afraid! I'm sorry, dear! I was sure you had one or two left."

"Finished?" exclaimed Nessie. "That's terrible. I can't do without them. My head's bursting. I must have one at once."

Mary looked at her sister's lowered face with solicitude, as she remarked:

"What can I do for you, dear? Would you like a cold cloth and vinegar on it?"

"I told you those were no good," cried Nessie urgently. "You'll need to get me a powder. Go out this very minute for me."

Mary's expression grew doubtful and, after a pause, she said:

"I can hardly go out just now, dearie. There's the dinner to make and everything. Lie down a little and I'll rub your head."

"Away and get the powder," the other burst out. "Can ye not do that one little thing for me you that's aye sayin' you want to help me? I'll not be right till I get one ye know that it's the only thing that eases me."

After a moment's hesitation, during which she gazed compassionately at Nessie, Mary moved her hands slowly to the strings of her apron and untied them even more slowly.

"All right, dear! I can't see you suffer like that. I'll go and get them made up for you right away;" then, as she went out of the room, she added sympathetically, "I'll not be a minute. Lie down and rest till I come back."

Nessie lay down obediently, realising with an inward satisfaction that the minute would be a full hour, that she would have ample time to receive her letter and compose herself again before Mary could make the journey to the town, wait tediously at the chemist's for the compounding of the prescription, and return to her. She smiled faintly as she heard the front door close behind her sister; and this smile again unlocked her restraint, for that strangely artful expression returned to her face and she jumped up and ran eagerly into the parlour.

Yes! There was Mary going down the road, hurrying the poor thing to secure the powders, as though there were not two still in the house hidden in the dresser drawer, and passing actually, without a sign, the postman as he made his way towards her. He had something in his bag that would bring more relief than all the powders that Lawrie could ever give her. How slow he was, though!

It was, she perceived, Dan, the older of the two postmen who came upon this round, and the very one who used to hand in Matt's letters with such an air of consequential dignity, exclaiming importantly:

"Something worth while in that one by the look o' it." No letter of Matt's had ever been so important as this one! Why did he not hurry? As she remained there, she felt vaguely that under the same circumstances of excitement and anticipation she had once before stood at this window in the parlour, and she became aware suddenly, without consciously seeking in her mind, that it had been on that day when Mamma had received the wire that had so upset her. She recollected the delicious thrill it had given her to hold the orange slip within her hand and remembered, too, how cleverly she had manoeuvred to ascertain the ignorance of Grandma Brodie upon the matter. Now she did not fear that her letter would be discovered by the old woman who, half blind and almost wholly deaf, kept to her room except when the call of meal times withdrew her from it.

Dan was getting nearer, leisurely crossing and recrossing the street, hobbling along as though he had corns upon every toe, wearing his heavy bag on his bent back like a packman. Still, how slow he was! Yet now, strangely, she did not wish quite so ardently that he should hurry, but rather that he should take his time and leave her letter till the last. Everybody in the road seemed to be getting letters to-day, and all, as she desired, before she received hers. Would John Grierson have had his yet? Much good it would do him if he had. She would have liked dearly to see the chawed look upon his face when he opened it. As for herself, she did not now want a letter at all; it was upsetting and she knew so well she had won the Latta that it was not worth the trouble of opening an envelope to confirm it. Some envelopes were difficult to open!

Yet here was Dan actually advancing to her house, causing her to tremble all over, making her gasp as he passed the gate carelessly as if aware that there could now be no letters for the Brodies then, as he stopped suddenly and returned, sending her heart leaping violently into her throat.

An age passed before the doorbell rang; but it did ring and she was compelled, whether she now wished it or not, to pull herself away from the window and advance to the door not with the skipping eagerness that she had displayed when fetching the telegram but slowly with a strange detached sense of unreality as though she still stood by the window and watched her own form move deliberately from the room.

The letter, long, stiff and important, with a blue shield upon the back, was in Dan's hand and her gaze became fixed upon it as she stood, unconscious of the smile which crinkled his veined, russet cheek and showed his tobacco-stained teeth, almost unconscious of the old postman himself yet dimly hearing him say, even as she expected, "Something worth while in that one, by the look o' it."

Now it was her hand which was cognisant of the letter, her fingers sensitively perceiving the rich, heavy texture of the paper, her eyes observing the thin, copperplate inscription of her own name which ran accurately across the centre of its white surface. How long she regarded her name she did not know, but when she looked up Dan had gone, without her having thanked him or even spoken to him, and, as she glanced along the vacant roadway, she felt a vague regret at her lack of courtesy, considered that she must make amends to him in some fashion, perhaps apologise or give him some tobacco for his Christmas box. But first she must open this that he had given her.

She turned, closing the door behind her, and, realising that she need not return to that dismal parlour which she hated so much, traversed the hall without a sound and entered the empty kitchen. There she immediately rid her hand of the letter by placing it upon the table. Then she returned to the door by which she had just entered, satisfied herself that it was firmly shut, advanced to the scullery door, which she inspected in like fashion, and finally, as though at last convinced of her perfect seclusion, came back and seated herself at the table. Everything was as she desired it, everything had befallen as she had so cleverly foreseen, and now, alone, unobserved, concealed, with nothing more to do, nothing for which to wait, she was free to open the letter.

Her eye fell upon it again, not fixedly as when she had received it, but with a growing, flickering agitation. Her lips suddenly felt stiff, her mouth dried up and she shook violently from head to foot. She perceived not the long, white oblong of the letter but her own form, bent eternally over a book, at school, at home, in the examination hall of the University, and always overcast by the massive figure of her father, which lay above and upon her like a perpetual shadow. The letter seemed to mirror her own face which looked up, movingly, telling her that all she had worked for, all she had been constrained to work for, the whole object of her life, lay there upon the table, crystallised in a few written words upon one hidden sheet of paper.

Her name was upon the envelope and the same name must be upon that hidden sheet within, or else everything that she had done, her very life itself, would be futile. She knew that her name was inside, the single name that was always sent without mention of the failures, the name of the winner of the Latta, and yet she was afraid to view it.

That, clearly, was ridiculous! She need not be afraid of her name which, as her father rightly insisted, was a splendid name, a noble name, and one of which she might justly be proud. She was Nessie Brodie she was the winner of the Latta! It had all been arranged months beforehand, everything had been settled between her father and herself. My! But she was the clever, wee thing the smartest lass in Levenford the first girl to win the Bursary a credit to the name of Brodie! As in a dream, her hand stole towards the letter. How curious that her fingers should tremble in this strange fashion as, under her own eyes, they opened the stiff envelope. How thin her fingers were! She had not willed them to open the letter and yet they had done so; even now they held the inner sheet in -their faintly trembling clasp.

Well ! She must see her name the name of Nessie Brodie. That, surely, was no hardship to view for one moment her own name. That moment had come!

With a heart that beat suddenly with a frantic, unendurable agitation, she unfolded the sheet and looked at it.

The name which met her shrinking gaze was not hers, it was the name of Grierson. John Grierson had won the Latta!

For a second she regarded the paper without comprehension; then her eyes filled with a growing horror which widened her pupils until the words before her blurred together, then faded from her view. She sat motionless, rigid, scarcely breathing, the paper still within her grasp, and into her ears flowed a torrent of words uttered in her father's snarling voice. She was alone in the room, he at the office a mile away yet in her tortured imagination she heard him, saw him

vividly before her.

"Grierson's won it! You've let that upstart brat beat you. It wouldna have mattered so much if it had been anybody else but Grierson the son o' that measly swine. And after all I've talked about ye winnin' it. It's damnable! Damnable, I tell ye! You senseless idiot after the way I've slaved with ye, keepin' ye at it for all I was worth! God! I canna thole it. I'll wring that thin neck o' yours for ye."

She sank deeper into her chair, shrinking from his invisible presence, her eyes still horrified, but cowering too, as though he advanced upon her with his huge open hands. Still, she remained motionless; even her lips did not move, but she heard herself cry feebly:

"I did my best, Father. I could do no more. Don't touch me, Father."

"Your best," he hissed. "Your best wasna good enough to beat Grierson. You that swore ye had the Latta in your pocket! I've got to sit down under another insult because of ye. I'll pay ye. I told ye it would be the pity of ye if ye failed."

"No! No! Father," she whispered. "I didn't mean to fail. I'll not do it again I promise you! You know I've always been the top of the class. I've always been your own Nessie. You wouldna hurt a wee thing like me. Ill do better next time."

"There'll be no next time for you," he shouted at her. "I’ll… I'll throttle ye for what you've done to me."

As he rushed upon her, she saw that he was going to kill her and, while she shrieked, closing her eyes in a frantic, unbelievable terror, the encircling band that had bound her brain for the last weary months of her study snapped suddenly and gave to her a calm and perfect peace. The tightness around her head dissolved, she was unloosed from the bonds that had confined her, her fear vanished and she was free. She opened her eyes, saw that her father was no longer there, and smiled an easy, amused smile which played over her mobile features like ripples of light and passed insensibly into a high, snickering laugh. Though her laughter was not loud, it moved her like a paroxysm, making the tears roll down her cheeks and shaking her thin body with its utter abandon. She laughed for a long time, then, as suddenly as her mirth had begun it ceased, her tears dried instantly, and her face assumed a wise, crafty expression like a gigantic magnification of that slight artfulness which it had worn when she stood thinking in the parlour. Now, however, clearly guided by a force within her, she did not think; she was above the necessity for thought. Pressing her lips into a prim line, she laid the letter, which had all this time remained within her grasp, carefully upon the table like a precious thing, and rising from her chair, stood casting her gaze up and down, moving her head like a nodding doll. When the nodding ceased, a smile, transient this time, flickered across her face and whispering softly, encouragingly to herself, "What ye do. ye maun do well, Nessie, dear", she turned and went tiptoeing out of the room. She ascended the stairs with the same silent and extravagant caution, paused in a listening attitude upon the landing, then, reassured, went mincing into her room. There, without hesitation, she advanced to the basin and ewer, poured out some cold water and began carefully to wash her face and hands. When she had washed meticulously, she dried herself, shining her pale features to a high polish by her assiduous application of the towel; then, taking off her old, grey beige dress she took from her drawer the clean cashmere frock which was her best. This apparently did not now wholly please her, for she shook her head and murmured:

"That's not pretty enough for ye, Nessie dear. Not near pretty enough for ye now!" Still, she put it on with the same unhurried precision and her face lightened again as she lifted her hands to her hair. As she unplaited it and brushed it quickly with long, rapid strokes, she whispered from time to time softly, approvingly, "My bonnie hair! My bonnie, bonnie hair!" Satisfied at last with the fine, golden sheen which her brushing had produced, she stood before the mirror and regarded herself with a far-away, enigmatical smile; then, taking her only adornment, a small string of coral beads, once given her by Mamma to compensate for Matthew's forgetfulness, she made as though to place them around her neck, when suddenly she withdrew the hand that held them. "They're gey and sharp, these beads," she murmured and laid them back gently upon her table.

Without further loss of time she marched softly out of her room, descended the stairs, and in the hall put on her serge jacket and her straw hat with the brave, new, satin ribbon that Mary had bought and sewn for her. She was now dressed completely for the street in her best dressed, indeed, as she had been on the day of the examination. But she did not go out of the house; instead, she slid stealthily back into the kitchen.

Here her actions quickened. Taking hold of one of the heavy wooden chairs, she moved it accurately into the centre of the room, then turned to her heaped books upon the dresser and transferred these to the chair, making a neat, firm pile which she surveyed with a pleased expression, adjusting some slight deviations from the regular symmetry of the heap with light, fastidious touches of her fingers. "That's a real neat job, my dear," she murmured contentedly. "You're a woman that would have worked well in the house." Even as she spoke, she moved backwards from the chair, still admiring her handiwork, but when she reached the door she turned and slipped lightly into the scullery. Here she bent and rummaged in the clothes basket at the window, then straightening up with an exclamation of triumph, she returned to the kitchen, bearing something in her hand. It was a short length of clothes line. Now her movements grew even more rapid. Her nimble fingers worked feverishly with one end of the thin rope, she leaped on the chair and, standing upon the piled books, corded the other end over the iron hook of the pulley on the ceiling. Then, without descending from the chair, she picked up the letter from the table and pinned it upon her bosom, muttering as she did so, "First prize, Nessie! What a pity it's not a red card."

Finally she inserted her neck delicately into the noose which she had fashioned, taking heed that she did not disarrange her hat and, passing the rope carefully under the mane of her hair, tightened it and was ready. She stood gaily poised upon the elevation of the books like a child perched upon a sand castle, her gaze directed eagerly out of the window across the foliage of the lilac tree. As her eyes sought the distant sky beyond, her foot, resting upon the back of the chair, pushed the support from beneath her, and she fell. The hook in the ceiling wrenched violently upon the beam above, which still securely held it. The rope strained but did not break. She hung suspended, twitching like a marionette upon a string, while her body, elongating, seemed to stretch out desperately one dangling foot, straining to reach the floor yet failing by a single inch to reach it. The hat tilted grotesquely across her brow, her face darkened slowly as the cord bit into her thin, white neck; her eyes, that were

placating, pleading even, and blue like speedwells, clouded with pain, with a faint wonder, then slowly glazed; her lips purpled, thickened, and fell apart; her small jaw dropped, a thin stream of froth ran silently across her chin. To and fro she oscillated gently, swinging in the room in a silence broken only by the faint flutter of the lilac leaves against the window panes, until, at last, her body quivered faintly and was still.

The house was silent as with the silence of consummation, but after a long hush the sound was heard of some person stirring above and slowly, hdtingly, descending the stairs. At length the kitchen door opened and Grandma Brodie came into the room. Drawn from her room by the approach of another meal time and the desire to make herself some especially soft toast, she now tottered forward, her head lowered, totally unobservant, until she blundered against the body.

"Teh! Teh! Where am I going?" she mumbled, as she recoiled, mazedly looking upwards out of her dim eyes at the hanging figure which the thrust of her arm had once more set in motion and which now swung lightly against her. Her aged face puckered incredulously as she peered, fell suddenly agape and, as the body of the dead girl again touched her, she staggered back and screamed.

"Oh! God in Heaven! What what is't! She's she's " Another scream rent her! Mouthing incoherently, she turned, shambled from the room, and flinging open the front door, stumbled headlong from the house.

Her agitated gait had taken her through the courtyard and into the roadway when, turning to continue her flight, she collided with and almost fell into the arms of Mary, who gazed at her in some distress and cried:

"What's the matter, Grandma? Are you ill?"

The old woman looked at her, her face working, her sunken lips twitching, her tongue speechless.

"What's wrong with you, Grandma?" repeated Mary in amazement. "Are you not well?"

"There! In there!" stuttered the other, pointing her stark hand wildly to the house. "Nessie! Nessie's in there! She's she's hangit herself in the kitchen."

Mary's glance leaped to the house, observed the open door; with a stricken cry she rushed past the old woman, and, still holding the white box of headache powders in her hand, flung herself up the steps, along the lobby, and into the kitchen.

"Oh! God!" she cried. "My Nessie!" She dropped the box she carried, tore out the drawer of the dresser, and, snatching a knife, turned and hacked furiously at the tense rope. In a second this parted and the warm body of Nessie sagged soundlessly against her and trailed upon the floor.

"Oh! God!" she cried again. "Spare her to me. We've only got each other left. Don't let her die!" Flinging her arms around her dead sister, she lowered her to the ground; throwing herself upon her knees, with tiernbling fingers she plucked at the cord sunk in the swollen neck and finally unloosed it. She beat the hands of the body, stroked the brow, cried inarticulately, in a voice choked by sobs, "Speak to me, Nessie! I love you, dearest sister! Don't leave me."

But no reply came from those parted, inanimate lips and in an agony of despair Mary leaped to her feet and rushed again out of the house into the roadway. Looking wildly about, she espied a boy upon a bicycle bearing down on her.

"Stop!" she cried, waving her arms frantically; and as he drew up wonderingly beside her, she pressed her hand to her side and gasped, her words tumbling one upon another, "Get a doctor! Get Doctor Renwick! Quick! My sister is ill! Go quickly! Quickly!" She sped him from her with a last cry and, returning to the house, she rushed for water, knelt again, raised Nessie in her arms, moistened the turgid lips, tried to make her drink. Then, laying the flaccid head upon a cushion, she sponged the dark face, murmuring brokenly:

"Speak to me, dearest Nessie! I want you to live! I want you to live! I should never have left you, but oh! why did you send me away?"

When she had sponged the face she knew of nothing more to do and remained upon her knees beside the prostrate form, tears streaming down her cheeks, her hands pressed distractedly together.

She was kneeling thus when hurried footsteps came through the still open door and Renwick entered the room. He failed at first to observe Nessie's body, which was masked by her kneeling form, and seeing only her, stood still, crying in a loud voice:

"Mary! What is wrong?"

But, coming forward, he dropped his gaze, saw the figure upon the floor and in a flash knelt down beside her. His hands moved rapidly over the body while she watched him dumbly, agonisingly, then after a moment he raised his eyes to her across the form of her sister and said slowly:

"Don't kneel any longer, Mary! Let me let me put her on the sofa."

She knew then from his tone that Nessie was dead, and while he lifted the body on to the sofa she stood up, her lips -quivering, her breast torn by the throbbing anguish of her heart.

"I'm to blame," she whispered brokenly. "I went out to get her headache powders."

He turned from the couch and looked at her gently.

"It's not you that is to blame, Mary! You did everything for her."

"Why did she do it?" she sobbed. "1 loved her so much. I wanted to protect her."

"I know that well! She must have lost her reason, poor child," he replied sadly. "Poor, frightened child."

"I would have done anything in life for her," she whispered. "I would have died for her."

He looked at her, her pale face ravaged by her grief, thinking of her past, her present sadness, of the grey uncertainty of her future, Kid as he gazed into her swimming eyes, an overwhelming emotion possessed him also. Like a spring which had lain deeply buried for long years and now welled suddenly to light, his feelings gushed over him in a rushing flow. His heart swelled at her grief and, swept by the certain knowledge that he could never leave her, he advanced to her, saying in a low voice:

"Mary! Don't cry, dear. I love you."

She looked at him blindly through her tears as he drew near to her and in an instant she was in his arms.

"You'll not stay here, dear," he whispered. "You'll come with me now. I want you to be my wife." He comforted her as she lay sobbing in his arms, telling her how he must have loved her from that moment when first he saw her, yet never known it till now.

While they remained thus, suddenly a loud voice addressed them, breaking upon them with an incredulous yet ferocious intensity.

"Damnation! what is the meaning of this in my house?" It was Brodie. Framed in the doorway, his view of the sofa blocked by the open door, he stood still, glaring at them, his eyes starting from his head in rage and wonder. "So this is your fancy man," he cried savagely, advancing into the room. "This is who these bonnie black grapes came from. I wondered who it might he, but, by God! I didna

think it was this this fine gentleman."

At these words, Mary winced and would have withdrawn from Renwick but he restrained her and, keeping his arm around her, he gazed fixedly at Brodie.

"Don't come that high and mighty look over me," sneered Brodie, with a short, hateful laugh. "You can't pull the wool over my eyes. It's me that's got the whip hand o' you this time. You're a bonnie pillar of the town right enough, to come to a man's house and make a brothel o't."

In answer Renwick drew himself up more rigidly, slowly raised his arm and pointed to the sofa.

"You are in the presence of death," he said.

Despite himself, Brodie's eyes fell under the coldness of the other's gaze.

"Are ye mad? You're all mad here," he muttered. But he turned to follow the direction of the other's finger and as he saw the body of Nessie he started, stumbled forward. "What what's this?" he cried dazedly. "Nessie! Nessie!"

Renwick led Mary to the door and, as she clung to him, he paused and cried sternly:

"Nessie hanged herself in this kitchen because she lost the Latta and, in the sight of God, you are responsible for her death." Then, taking Mary with him, he drew her out of the room and they passed together out of the house.

Brodie did not hear them go, but, stunned by Renwick's last words and by the strange stillness of the figure before him, he muttered:

"They're try in' to frighten me! Wake up, Nessie! It's your father that's speakin' to ye. Come on, pettie, wake up!" Putting forward his hand haltingly to shake her, he perceived the paper on her breast and, seizing it, he plucked it from her dress and raised it tremulously to his eyes.

"Grierson!" he whispered, in a stricken voice. "Grierson's got it. She did lose it then!"

The paper dropped from his hand and involuntarily his glance fell upon her neck, marked by a livid red weal. Even as he saw it, he touched again her inert, flaccid form and his face grew livid like the weal upon her white skin.

"God!" he muttered. "She has she has hanged herself." He covered his eyes as though unable to bear the sight longer. "My God," he mumbled again, "she has she has " And then, as though he panted for breath, "I was fond of my Nessie." A heavy groan burst from his breast. Staggering like a drunken man, he backed blindly from the body and sank unconsciously into his chair. A rush of dry sobs racked him, rending his breast in anguish. With his head sunk into his hands he remained thus, his tortured mind filled by one obsessing thought, yet traversed by other fleeting thoughts, by an endless stream of images which slipped past the central figure of his dead daughter like a procession of shadows floating round a recumbent body on a catafalque.

He saw his son and Nancy, together in the sunshine, saw the drooping form and pathetically inclined head of his wife, the sneering face of Grierson mocking at his distress, Renwick holding Mary in his arms, the bold figure of young Foyle bearding him in his office; he saw the obsequious Perry, Blair, Paxton, Gordon, even Dron they all marched silently before his shuttered eyes, all with heads averted from him, all condemning him, their eyes turned sadly to the body of his Nessie as she reposed upon the bier.

As though unable to bear longer the torment of these inward visions, he raised his head from his hands, uncovered his eyes, and looked furtively towards the sofa. At once his eyes fell upon the thin arm of the dead child as it hung over the edge of the couch limp, pendant, immobile, the pale waxen fingers of the hand drooping from the small palm. With a shudder he raised his eyes and looked

blindly out of the window. As he sat thus, the door opened slowly and his mother came into the room. Her recent terror had faded from her senile mind the whole sad event lost in the maunderings of her doting brain and now, tottering to her chair, she seated herself opposite her son. Her eyes sought him as she sounded his mood with her dim gaze, then, sensing his silence to be propitious, she muttered:

"'I think I'll make myself a bit soft toast." At this she rose oblivious to all but her own needs hobbled to the scullery and, returning again, sat down and began to toast the slice of bread she had obtained. "I can soak it in my broth," she muttered to herself, sucking in her cheeks. "It suits my stomach brawly that way." Then, as she again looked at her son across the fireplace, she noticed at lasv the strangeness of his eyes, her head shook agitatedly, and she exclaimed:

"You're not angry wi' me, are ye, James? I'm just makin’ my sell some nice, soft toast. I was aye fond o't, ye ken. I'll make you a bit yourself, gin ye want it," and she tittered uneasily, propitiatingly, across at him with a senile, senseless, sound that broke the heavy silence of the room. But he did not reply and still gazed stonily out of the window, where the warm summer wind moved gently amongst the thin leaves of the straggling bushes that fringed his garden. The breeze freshened, disporting itself amongst the shoots of the currant bushes then, circling, it touched the leaves of the three, tall, serene, silver trees, flickering them dark and light with a soft caress, then suddenly, striking the house, it chilled, and passed quickly onwards io the beauty of the Winton Hills beyond.

THE END