CHAPTER I

Archibald Berstoun of that ilk ("of y' ilk" was the form that most delicately tickled his palate) still dwelt in the fortalice built by his ancestors at a time when to the average Scot the national tartan suggested but an alien barbarian who stole his cattle; and the national bagpipe, the national heather, and the national whisky were merely the noise the brute made, the cover that preserved him from the gallows, and the stuff that gave you your one chance of catching him asleep.

(A few reflections on the whirligig of time were here inserted, but have since been omitted, as they were found to occur in a modified form elsewhere.)

The castle stood in the lowland part of Perthshire, and was erected by the second of that ilk as a tribute to the dexterity with which his highland neighbors had removed the effects and cut the throat of the first. It was a sober and simple building, steep-roofed and battlemented at the top, turreted at the angles, and pierced with a few narrow windows so irregularly scattered about its gray harled walls as to suggest that no two rooms could possibly be on the same level. Naturally, the architectural genius who illumines the quiet annals of every landed family had knocked out a number of French windows into the lawn and constructed the first story of a Chinese pagoda, in which he proposed to store Etruscan curios with an aviary above; but his descendants had fortunately lacked the funds to complete these improvements. In fact, the stump of the pagoda was now so entirely overgrown with ivy that it had become the traditional fortress of Agricola.

This ancient habitation of a hard-fighting race was framed on two sides by a garden that looked as old as the walls which towered above it, and was well-nigh as simple and sober. Dark clipped yews, and smooth green grass, and graceful old-world flowers were its chief and sufficient ingredients. The genius who designed the pagoda had not yet turned his attention to the garden when Providence checked his career.

A wood of black Scotch firs stretched for a long way beyond this pleasant garden, and struck a stern northern note befitting the gnarled battlements; while, nearer the house, gray beech stems towered out of the brown dead leaves below up to the brown live buds a hundred feet nearer the clouds.

On the remaining two sides of the castle you were not supposed to bestow attention, since after the old custom the home farm approached more closely than is fashionable nowadays; though to the curious they were the sides best worth attention, owing to the cultured pagoda-builder having deemed it beneath his dignity to molest them.

One afternoon in early spring Ellen Berstoun walked slowly down a sheltered garden path. She had been singularly moody of late—so distressed, indeed, and so little like a lucky girl whose wedding might be fixed for any day she chose to name, that her five unmarried sisters held many private debates on the causes of her conduct. The three next to her in years expressed grave apprehensions lest the very fairly creditable marriage arranged for her should after all fall through. Ellen was not treating Andrew well, they complained; while on the other hand, the two youngest, being as yet irresponsibly romantic, declared vigorously that they had sooner dear Ellen remained single to the end of her days than introduced such a long-lipped, fat-cheeked brother-in-law into the family.

It was a part of poor Ellen's burden that she was acutely conscious of the duty which her parents and all her aunts assured her she owed these sisters. But, on the other hand, to share the remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw—There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was very hard hit indeed.

It was at this moment that she spied a lad approaching from the house.

"Well, Jimmy?" she inquired.

With an appearance of some caution, he handed her a note.

"It was to be gi'en to yoursel' privately, miss," he said mysteriously, and turned to go.

"Is there no answer?" she asked.

"He said I wasna to bide for an answer."

He hurried off as though his directions had been peremptory, and Ellen opened the letter. It was written upon the notepaper of a local inn, and if she was surprised to discover the writer, she was still more astonished by the contents.

Ellen stood lost in perplexity. Rumors had reached her of Mr. Walkingshaw's recent eccentricity. The request was entirely out of keeping with all her previous acquaintance with him; that point of exclamation after "romantic proceeding" struck her as uncomfortably dissimilar to his usual methods of composition. Ought she not to consult one of her parents, or at least a sister? And yet the postscript was too explicit to be neglected.

For a few minutes she hesitated. Then she made up her mind; her warm heart could not bear to disappoint anybody; and besides, Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, however odd his conduct might have been lately was such a pompously respectable—indeed venerable—old gentleman that a maiden might surely trust herself with him alone, even in a grove of trees. And so, in a furtive and backward-glancing manner, she stole into the wood. It was an unusual way of approaching one's father's man of business and one's financÉ's parent, but Ellen consoled herself by the reflection that an experienced Writer to the Signet should best know how these things were done.

She hurried down a narrow, winding glade, lined by countless slender columns supporting far overhead a roof of millions of dark green needles swaying and murmuring in the breeze. Suddenly sunshine and green fields filled the opening of the glade, and as suddenly a tall gentleman stepped from behind a tree and politely raised a fashionable felt hat. In all essential features he was the image of Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, only that he was so very much younger.

"Well, my dear Ellen!" he exclaimed heartily.

She stared at him, too amazed for speech.

"Am I really so changed already?" he inquired with a smile. "That shows the beneficial effect of seeing you."

Even though his manner had altered as much as his appearance, she found the change so agreeable that she overlooked its strangeness. She smiled back at him.

"I am glad to see you looking so well," she said.

He beamed upon her in what he sincerely meant for a paternal manner.

"You, my dear child, look ripping! My hat, you are pretty! Ellen dear, my only wish is to make you as happy as you are bonny."

She looked at him searchingly, and her voice had a note of guarded alarm.

"What do you mean?"

His air became sympathy itself.

"My dear girl, I have been greatly distressed to hear that all has not been going smoothly with you and Andrew."

She gave him a quick glance and then looked away.

"Indeed!" she answered a little coldly. "Who told you that?"

"I can read it in my son's altered health."

She looked at him in surprise, but without anxiety.

"I didn't know there was anything the matter with him."

"He had to hasten up to London for a change of air."

"I hope it did him good," she said indifferently.

"My dear girl, have you no wish to hurry to his bedside?"

"I'm afraid I shouldn't be any good if I did."

"And you wouldn't find him in bed, either," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw, with a change of manner. "No, no, Ellen; you needn't pretend you're in love with Andrew if that's all the concern you feel. And I may tell you at once that he's as tough as ever, and as great a fool. The fellow is totally unworthy of you, so don't you worry your head about him any longer."

He bent over her confidentially.

"Supposing some one were to cut him out, eh?"

"Some one—" she stammered. "Who?"

"Guess!" he smiled.

She did guess; and it was a shocking surmise.

"I—I have no idea," she fibbed.

"Oh, come now, hang it, look me in the eye and repeat that!"

For an instant, she looked into that roguish eye, and her worst suspicions were confirmed.

"Mr. Walkingshaw," she answered, with trembling candor, "I feel very much honored, but really I must ask you not to—not to say anything more. Our ages—oh, everything—I couldn't! I had better go back now."

The philanthropic father gasped.

"Ellen! stop! My dear child, I don't mean myself! Good heavens, I am far too old for a young girl like you!"

Yet it was at that moment that he suddenly realized he wasn't.

"Then—then what—" she began, and stopped, overwhelmed with confusion.

Hurriedly he endeavored to put things once more upon a paternal footing.

"My fault, my dear Ellen, my fault entirely. Naturally you thought—er—yes, yes, it was quite natural. I—I put it badly. I didn't think what I was saying. The fact is, I've been"—a brilliant inspiration suddenly illumined the chaos of his mind—"I've been so troubled about poor Frank!"

Her expression altogether changed.

"What's the matter?" she exclaimed.

His mind calmed down. Composing his countenance, he shook his head sadly.

"I don't think he'll get over it."

She laid her hand upon his arm with a quick, involuntary gesture.

"But what has happened? Tell me!"

The wisdom of age and the shrewdness of youth twinkled together in Mr. Walkingshaw's eye, but he managed to retain a decorously solemn air.

"You are really concerned this time?"

"Of course! I—I mean, naturally."

He drew her hand through his arm and led her along the fringe of the pine woods.

"Come and see," he said gently. "Poor boy he's had a bad fall."

"What! Is he here—with you?"

"Yes—yes," he answered, with an absent and melancholy air.

He led her a few paces into the trees, and there, seated on a fallen trunk, they saw the victim of fate smoking a cigarette with a meditative air. He sprang to his feet with a light in his eye that might have been the result of some acute disaster, but scarcely looked like it.

"Frank, my boy," said his father, "I have just been explaining to Ellen that you have fallen"—he turned to the girl with a merry air—"in love!" he chuckled, and the next moment they were listening to his flying footsteps and looking at one another.

---

CHAPTER II

High overhead the pines murmured gently, and Mr. Walkingshaw, strolling through the quiet colonnades below in solitude and shade, heard the strangest messages whispered down by those riotous tree-tops. He was no longer even middle-aged! Or at least his heart certainly was not. It seemed to keep a decade or so younger than his body, and Heaven knew that was growing younger fast enough! At this rate how much longer could he play the beneficent parent? Good Lord, he had jolly nearly fallen head over ears in love with sweet Ellen Berstoun in the course of five minutes' conversation! She wasn't a day too old for Heriot W. That's to say, he could do with a lassie of that age fine, and, by Gad, he shouldn't wonder but Ellen mightn't have rather cottoned to him if her heart had been free. She looked deuced coy when she thought he was proposing. Yes, a girl like Ellen was the ticket for him. But in that case, what about Madge?

For several minutes Mr. Walkingshaw stood very solemnly studying the bark on an entirely ordinary pine, concluding his scrutiny by hitting it a sharp smack with his walking-stick and turning away from the sight of it with apparent distaste. However, a minute or two later he seemed to find one he liked better, for he placed his back against it, removed his hat, and gazed upwards at the softly murmuring branches. Once more their whispers made him smile. Sufficient for the day were the difficulties thereof! That was the way to look at it. Meanwhile, the spring was young, and the little flowers in the wood were young, and the blue sky that showed in peeps through the swinging tree-tops looked as young as any of them, and certainly it was a young and lusty breeze that swayed them. By Jingo, what excellent company they all were for him!

And then he heard another murmuring sound, coming this time from behind him. He held his breath and caught the words—

"Ellen! I love you—I love you!"

He peeped round the tree, and for an instant saw them. A most gratifying tribute to his diplomacy—but devilish disturbing to a young fellow without a girl! Hurriedly he snapped a twig; he snapped another; he broke a branch; he whistled, he coughed, he shouted. And then they looked up, vaguely surprised to find there was another person in the world.

"Well, Frank," said his father, as they walked back together towards their inn, "are you not feeling happy now, my boy, eh?"

"Happy!" exclaimed Frank. "I'm stupefied with happiness!"

As Heriot Walkingshaw strode between the spring breeze and the murmuring pines, his son's arm through his, listening to his gratitude and Ellen's praises, he too felt happier than ever before in his life. What a lot of pleasure he had learned how to give. And the way to give it was so simple once you found it out. Apparently you had merely to get in sympathy with people, and then do the things which naturally, under those circumstances, you would both like to be done. There was really nothing in it at all; still, it was jolly well worth doing.

Only as they neared the inn did a qualm begin to trouble Frank.

"It's deuced rough luck on Andrew, losing that girl," he said suddenly. "Hang it, it would kill me!"

"It's only losing his money that'll ever hurt Andrew," replied his father cheerfully. "Don't you worry about what he'll say."

Unfortunately, Mr. Walkingshaw forgot that the provision for this happy marriage was, in fact, coming indirectly from Andrew's pocket. Even the youngest of us cannot foresee everything, or Heriot would not have been humming "Gin a laddie kiss a lassie," quite so lightheartedly.

"I must say I funk having it out with him," remarked Frank.

"Just you leave it all to me. I'm a match for Andrew any day."

It would have been well if Mr. Walkingshaw had "touched wood" as he made this vaunt; but at that moment his confidence was so serene that he felt master of any emergency conceivable by man.

"Andrew's not the mate for Ellen," he said presently. "The young are for each other, Frank; that's the law of nature."

He smiled to himself.

"I learnt that this afternoon. By Jove, what a pretty girl Ellen is!"

And then again his young heart remembered the sympathetic widow, and he stopped smiling.

---

CHAPTER III

The backbone of our country is that band of civic heroes who, when turmoil rages and disaster threatens, are the last men to desert the desk. In this glorious company Andrew Walkingshaw was numbered. His father might tear up and down the country like a disreputable whirlwind, his widowed relative fume and plot, his sister disgrace the family by an unsuitable engagement, his betrothed leave his affectionate letters unanswered, his own soul writhe in decorous anguish at these calamities, but Casabianca himself was not more faithful to his post than he. It is true, indeed, that he had once tried the alternative policy and chased that cyclone, but he had taken to heart the lesson, and thenceforth closed his ears to disquieting rumors, his eyes to distressing symptoms, and went about his work, if possible, more conscientiously than ever. That was the proper way to get through business—conscientiously. He was sickened with the people (clients of some eminence, but evidently with a screw loose) who kept deferring their more important concerns till the senior partner returned with his infernal headlong methods. Let them wait if they liked! Let them take their business elsewhere if they were such fools! Deliberately and calmly he had washed his hands of his senior partner. That was the end of him so far as he was concerned, said Andrew to himself. But alas! you may wash your hands of a tornado, but supposing it retorts by blowing down your house?

It was about nine in the evening, and he sat by himself, severely scrutinizing the pleadings drawn up by his clerk for a forthcoming case, connected with so large a sum of money that it was a pleasure merely to read the imposing figures. The ladies were upstairs in the drawing-room. So long as Mrs. Dunbar was among them, he was not likely to show his face there.

The door opened, and he turned, frowning at the interruption, and then sprang up with a troubled eye. It was his father certainly; but what a remarkable change since he had seen him last! For the first time Andrew realized the full enormity of his conduct in growing younger. His very appearance had become a crying scandal.

"Sweating away at your old papers?" inquired Heriot pleasantly.

Andrew stiffly resumed his seat.

"Yes, I am busy," he replied, and took up the pleadings again.

But his father ignored the hint. Straddling comfortably before the fire, he remarked—

"Frank and I have been up to Perthshire."

Andrew looked up quickly, but merely answered—

"Oh, indeed?"

"We've been seeing Ellen."

"What about?"

Mr. Walkingshaw threw himself into a chair.

"My boy," said he, with the air of friendly commiseration which he felt that the occasion undoubtedly demanded, "I find I was right about your rival."

Andrew remained calm, though not quite so calm as before.

"Do you mean there's some one else after her?"

"He's got her."

The calm departed.

"Got! What the deuce d'ye mean?"

"She has chosen another, Andrew."

"Chosen! But she's no choice left her. She's engaged to me."

"She was engaged to you. She's now engaged to him."

"To him? Who the dev—er—what are you driving at? Who's the man?"

"Frank."

"Frank!"

Andrew stared at his father incredulously.

"I don't believe a word of it."

"Well, you may ask Frank if you like; but I assure you you can take my word for it."

It was characteristic of Andrew's robust mind that, instead of wasting time in noisy vaporings and sentimental sorrow, it seized at once the weak point in the case.

"But he can't afford to marry."

"Oh, I'll see to that."

"You'll see!" shouted Andrew. "Do you mean to say you've had a finger in the pie?"

"Four fingers and a thumb," smiled his parent.

Once more Andrew, without waste of words in expostulation or commentary, summarized the situation in a sentence—

"This is fair damnable!"

"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Mr. Walkingshaw soothingly. "I owe you an explanation, of course, but when you've heard it, I know you'll agree I've done the right thing."

"An explanation!" exclaimed Andrew sardonically. "Go on, let's hear it."

"I can give you the gist of it in a sentence: she loves Frank, and she doesn't love you. Now, in that case, which of you ought she to marry?"

"That's nothing to do with it—"

"What! love's nothing to do with marriage?"

"When a woman's once engaged, she's got to implement her promise."

"Whether it makes her happy or miserable?"

"Who was miserable, I'd like to know?"

"Ellen."

"It's the first I've heard of it."

"Do you mean to say you couldn't see it for yourself?"

"No, I could not; and even if she was, there's not the shadow of an excuse for your conduct. You're just making a mess of everything you meddle with. Getting me jilted like this! What do you suppose people will say? What'll they be thinking of me? Oh, good Lord!"

The unhappy young man brooded somberly. Mr. Walkingshaw lit a cigar, and then settled himself down to remove by gentle argument the cloud that temporarily obscured his son's serenity.

"Just look at the thing for a moment in a quiet and reasonable light, Andrew. Happiness, as you are well aware, is the chief aim of humanity. Damn it, our religion teaches us that—or practically that. A kind of warm and amiable gleefulness—that's the ideal. Now, how can a young girl like Ellen be happy or gleeful married to a sober old codger like you, eh? Man, the thing's clean impossible. She's no more suited to you than a lace cover to a coal-scuttle. Well, then what's the obvious thing to do? Hand her over to a brisk young fellow who can do her justice, of course. Besides, just think of your own brother pining away in the—what do they call it?—torrid zone, all for love of a girl who's pining away for love of him. The thing's totally illogical. A society of hedgehogs would have more sense than to allow an arrangement like that. You see my point now, don't you?"

"I've heard you say with your own lips," retorted Andrew, "that all a girl required was a comfortable home and a husband who knew his own mind."

"But you must remember," explained his father, "I was an old fool then."

Andrew sprang to his feet with a wry and bitter face.

"You certainly haven't the qualities of age now. I never heard such daft-like rubbish in my life. For Heaven's sake, just try to use any common sense you've got left. Frank will never have enough money to keep her properly."

"Ah, but naturally I mean to alter my arrangements."

Gradually the full possibilities of the situation were revealing themselves to the well-regulated mind of the junior partner.

"You mean to change your will?"

"I do."

Yet another horrid possibility showed its head.

"And are you going to alter Jean's share too, so that this precious Vernon fellow may have something to squander?"

"Something respectable to live on," corrected his parent. "You mustn't starve art, you know."

Andrew stared at him in silence, and when he spoke, it was with the air of a much-wronged worm which has deliberately resolved to turn at last.

"I'm not wanting any of your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I warn you of that."

"My dear Andrew," said his father reproachfully, "that's hardly the attitude of a professing Christian. Just think, now; is it? You'll easily find a decent, quiet woman with a bit of money and no objection to hearing every day for an hour or two how you've been worried by your clients and swindled by your father, and I do honestly believe you'll get as near happiness as you're capable of. That's common sense, now; isn't it?"

The slamming of the door answered him.

"What a sulky fellow he is!" said Heriot to himself.

Yet so conscious was he of the rectitude of his intentions, and so confiding had his disposition grown, that it never crossed his mind to beware of an infuriated lawyer. Besides, when Andrew had slept over it, he would surely realize how unanswerable were his father's arguments.

"We'll see the old stick-in-the-mud dancing at Frank's wedding!" thought he. "There's no vice in Andrew; only a bit of obstinacy. It's all bark and no bite with him."

With these amiable reflections he speedily consoled himself for the discomfort of any little temporary friction. And then the door opened gently.

---

CHAPTER IV

"I heard you had come back again," said Mrs. Dunbar.

She closed the door as gently as she had opened it. The action pathetically expressed the quiet sorrow of a much-wronged woman's heart.

"Yes," said Heriot gallantly, "I'm back again to Scotland, home and beauty. Ha, ha! Now that was quite pretty, wasn't it?"

But her black eyes declined to sparkle, as she glided silently to a chair. Out of the corner of his own eye her lover looked at her critically.

"I'm delighted to see you again, Madge," he went on; but his words had a hollow ring, and his eye continued to express more doubt than passion.

"Have you no apology to offer me?" she inquired, with the same ominous calm.

"For what, my dear lady?"

She started a little and glanced at him apprehensively. "My dear lady" hardly indicated love's divinest frenzy.

"For treating me shamefully!"

"This is strong language," he smiled indulgently. "Tell me now, I say, just tell me what I've done."

Thus invited, the lady described his conduct in leaving her alone and unprotected in a London hotel, to the neglect of his affectionate assurances and the shame and confusion of herself, in language which did no more than justice to the theme.

"But I left Jean to look after you," he protested.

"When I want your daughter to look after me I shall ask you for her assistance," she replied tartly. "You broke your word to me, and you can't deny it."

"I do deny it," he replied, with dignity. "I told you I should travel north—"

"Oh!" she interrupted, with scathing contempt, "you were very straightforward and gentlemanly, I know!"

He looked at her ever more critically. A recollection of Ellen and the pine-wood returned forcibly.

"Put it as you will," he replied philosophically, and turned towards the fire.

She watched him jealously.

"But why did you run away?" she persisted. "Where have you been since? Heriot, I insist upon knowing that—I insist!"

She rose and came towards him. He took her hand and pressed it gently.

"I shall tell you all," he said, as he led her back to her chair and drew another towards it. When they were about three feet apart he sat down himself and bent confidentially towards her. Yet he did not attempt to bridge entirely the intervening space.

"I have been up to Perthshire," he began, "assisting dear Ellen Berstoun to break off her engagement with Andrew."

Mrs. Dunbar sat up with a much more alert expression.

"I am glad to hear it," she said, with decision.

"I discovered that Frank and she loved one another. I am very glad to say he is now engaged to her instead."

She smiled at last.

"Do tell me what Andrew said!"

He shook his head.

"I'm afraid he is somewhat unreasonably annoyed."

She smiled more brightly still.

"How very good for him! Really, Heriot, you have done a very sensible thing indeed."

Heriot smiled back.

"It seemed to me," said he, "that there was really too much disparity in years. The young should marry the young, Madge."

"I agree with you entirely."

It was his smile that now seemed to indicate an increasing satisfaction.

"You agree also that under those circumstances it is no longer the duty of two people to marry, even if they have unfortunately become engaged?"

"I think it would only lead to wretchedness if they did. Honestly, I don't feel in the least sorry for Andrew. In fact, I thoroughly agree that people ought to have their engagements broken off for them if they haven't the sense to see they are unsuitable for themselves."

Heriot received this assurance with evident pleasure. His manner grew more confidential still.

"Madge," he said, "I think it is time I made you a very serious confession."

Her smile departed.

"You may have noticed," he continued, "a certain bloom, so to speak, upon me, a sort of freshness, and so on. Madge, it is the bloom of youth."

She grew uneasy.

"Oh, really?"

"It is a literal, physical fact. I am rapidly approaching thirty."

She moved into the farthest corner of her chair, but made no other comment.

"You will thus see that it is merely a question of time before there will be an even greater disparity of years between you and me than between Ellen and Andrew."

Her expression changed entirely.

"Heriot!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Yes, Madge, I grieve deeply to resign the hopes of happiness I had formed on a life spent in your society, but alas! I must. Your adult charms cannot be thrown away upon an unappreciative youth; it would be a tragedy."

"You are many years older than I!"

"I was a short time ago, but to-day we are roughly speaking, twins—though with this difference, that as I am looking forward to a strenuous youth, and you to a handsome old age, naturally I feel a chicken compared with you. But then think of the next year or two, when I shall perhaps be playing football, and you will find it no longer possible to keep your gray hairs so artistically brushed beneath your black tresses: think of that, Madge!"

"Are you out of your mind?" she gasped.

"On the contrary, I have never been clearer-headed in my life."

"Then," she exclaimed wrathfully, "you are merely inventing a ridiculous fable to excuse your shuffling out of your engagement!"

"My dear lady," he replied pacifically, "shall I jump over this chair to convince you?"

"Nothing would convince me."

"Ah," he said, with a friendly smile, "I see that you want to have me whether I'm a suitable mate or not, whether my feelings have changed—"

"I certainly do not!" she interrupted.

"Then in that case shall we call it off?"

He rose and picked up an evening paper.

She tried the resource of tears. The spectacle of a handsome woman weeping had brought him temporarily to his senses once before. But this time, though his manner was as kind as any widow could desire, his words brought the unfortunate lady no more consolation than his conduct.

"My dear Madge, just look at the thing sensibly. Surely you are old enough by this time to take a practical view of what after all is a very simple situation. You laid down the law yourself not five minutes ago, and laid it down very justly. If two people are unsuitably mated, the engagement should be broken off. Very well; just try to realize for a moment what it means to marry a man who is getting fuller and fuller of beans all the time—at your age, mark you. The fact is, we are just like two trains rushing in opposite directions. For a moment we may be side by side, and then—whit!—we have passed each other and are getting a couple of miles farther apart every minute."

Even this graphic allegory failed to dry her tears.

"You are deserting me—you are breaking my heart!" she wailed.

"Hush, hush," he answered soothingly; "on the contrary, I am sparing you—sparing you no end of anxiety."

She looked at him like a tragedy queen.

"Have you no thought of how my reputation will suffer, Heriot?"

"How can it suffer? Nobody knows we've been engaged."

"Do you suppose they haven't guessed?"

"Not from anything I've said or done, I can assure you."

She sprang up indignantly.

"Have you no sense of honor?"

"Look here," he answered, with his most ingratiating manner, "I'll be a son to you, Madge—an affectionate, dutiful—"

"You coward!" she cried.

Heriot found himself alone in his library with his engagement satisfactorily ended.

---

CHAPTER V

Andrew had retired to the dining-room. Once the day's eating was over, this apartment, with its vast space of dignified gloom, its black marble mantelpiece, and the cloth of indigo plushette which now covered the table, made the most congenial refuge conceivable. His thoughts were in exact harmony with everything there, from the Venetian blinds to the portrait of his great-grandmother. The only discordant element was the presence of a few errant bread-crumbs, and happily they were under the table.

It was to this lair that he was tracked by Madge Dunbar. She never paused to ask if she disturbed him, or gave him any chance of protest, but advancing straight up to him, exclaimed—

"Your father is off his head!"

The junior partner eyed her warily, divided between suspicion and a glow of sympathy with her opinion.

"What has he done now?" he inquired gloomily.

"He has treated me exactly as he has treated you!"

The sympathy deepened; the suspicion began to ooze away; but all he remarked was, "Oh?"

He was indeed a magnificently cautious man.

"What can we do?" she cried.

Andrew scrutinized her carefully. She might be fibbing; she might be up to some of her tricks again; this might even be a move arranged with his father. One could not be too prudent.

"What do you propose to do?" he asked.

"Bring him to his senses if it's possible: if not—Oh, Andrew, his conduct is infamous! I don't care what we do to punish—I mean to restrain him."

At last, after many days' abstinence, the junior partner smiled. It was not a very wide, nor in the least a merry smile; his cheeks bulged only slightly under its gentle pressure, and the satisfaction which smiles traditionally notify seemed savored with a squeeze or two of lemon. But it marked the beginning of a new coalition, an ominous disturbance of the balance of power.

"That is exactly the point I have under consideration myself," he said. "The difficulty is, how is it to be managed?"

She seated herself within twelve feet of him, and yet he did not shrink from her now with modest mistrust.

"It seems to me perfectly obvious what we should do. Just offer him an alternative."

"What alternative?" asked Andrew.

---

Meanwhile, Mr. Walkingshaw was spending one of the happiest evenings he remembered. There was indeed some slight constraint in the drawing-room so long as his sister remained there, but when, after a series of sighs which punctuated some twenty minutes' pointed silence, she at last bade them a depressed good-night, the three happy lovers gave rein to their hearts. Heriot gave the loosest rein of all. It almost seemed as if a lover set at liberty was even happier than a lover just engaged. He had that air of animated relief noticeable in the escaped victims of a conscientious dentist. As for his children, they adored him little less than they adored two other people who were not there.

Yet once or twice Jean fell thoughtful. At last she said—

"I wonder whether we ought to go out to the Comyns' to-morrow after all?"

"My dear girl, why not? You'll have a very pleasant time there; and anyhow, it's too late to write and tell them you aren't coming."

"We could wire in the morning," she said. "Frank, do you think we ought to go?"

He looked a little surprised, but answered readily, "Not if you don't want to."

"But why not go?" their father repeated.

She hesitated. "Are you quite sure Andrew and Madge won't—won't try to be unpleasant?"

"Let them try if they like!" laughed Heriot. "But I assure you, my dear girl, I was so reasonable—so unanswerable, in fact—that they simply can't feel annoyed for more than a few hours. Hang it, they are very nice good people at heart. Just give 'em time to let the proper point of view sink in, and they'll be chirpy as sparrows again. Besides, what good could you do by staying at home? The Comyns have a nice place; you'll have a capital time. I insist on your going."

"Very well, then," said Jean.

Yet she could hardly picture Andrew and her cousin quite as chirpy as sparrows.

And all this time, beneath the very floor of the room where they laughed, the plans of the coalition ripened.

---

In the course of breakfast upon the following morning, Heriot startled his junior partner by announcing his intention of putting in a strenuous day's work at the office. Andrew exchanged a curious glance with Mrs. Dunbar, and then merely inquired—

"When will you be back?"

"Four o'clock," said Heriot cheerfully. "Quite long enough hours for a man of my age" (he smiled humorously at his son). "Of course there's sure to be a lot of things to put right, and so on" (Andrew raised a startled eye), "but I'll polish 'em off by four."

He ate a remarkably hearty breakfast and strode off blithely, this time a few minutes ahead of his partner. It was an even more singular thing that Andrew should linger to confer once more with the lady he had so lately regarded as the impersonation of everything suspicious.

Another curious incident happened later in the day. At lunch-time the junior partner left the office, and, without giving an explanation, remained absent through the afternoon. Not that Heriot missed him. He smoked and wrote and rallied Mr. Thomieson, and dictated letters which left his confidential clerk divided between the extremes of admiration for their shrewdness and horror at the terse and lively style in which they were couched; in short, he got through a day's work that sent him home at four o'clock in the best of spirits.

Andrew met him in the hall.

"Hullo," said Heriot, "where have you been all this time?"

"I want to speak to you for a minute," his son replied, and then, as his father turned naturally towards the library door, stayed him. "There's some one in there. Just come into the dining-room for a moment."

"Who's in there?"

Andrew waited till he had got him behind the closed door, and then said very gravely—

"It's Mrs. Dunbar and a friend of hers."

"What friend?—Not old Charlie Munro?"

"A Mr. Brown. Possibly you've not heard of him before, but I understand he's a connection of her late husband's family. She's asked him to come and meet you."

The exceeding solemnity of his manner obviously affected Heriot's high spirits.

"What's up?" he inquired.

"I should hardly think you would need to ask that, considering what has passed between you. In fact, I gather that they want to be satisfied there's some reasonable explanation of your conduct."

Mr. Walkingshaw gently whistled.

"Oh, that's the game, is it? Well, I suppose I'll just have to tell him the simple truth, in justice to myself."

His son heartily agreed.

"It's the only thing to be done," said he, "the only honest course left, so far as I can see. Just make a clean breast of everything, and you may trust me to confirm all you say."

"My dear boy, you're devilish good. I'm afraid I really haven't been as appreciative lately as I ought. You're talking like a sportsman now. Come on, we'll go in and tackle 'em together."

He took his son's arm and gave him a friendly smile as they crossed the hall; but the seriousness of the situation seemed to prevent Andrew from returning these evidences of comradeship.

The injured lady met her betrayer with marked constraint. She seemed to anticipate little pleasure from the interview, but had evidently made up her mind to go through with it as a duty she owed her reputation and her friend Mr. Brown. This gentleman was grave, elderly, and of an unmistakably professional aspect. In a vague way Heriot fancied he had seen his face before, though he could not recollect where.

"Well," said Mr. Walkingshaw genially, "here we all are; and now what's the business before the meeting?"

"I understand," replied Mr. Brown, in a calm and gentle voice, "that you have broken off your engagement with this lady. Now, as a—well, I may say, as an interested friend of Mrs. Dunbar, I should very much like to have your reasons."

Heriot smiled.

"Will you undertake to believe them?"

"I undertake to give them my closest professional consideration, whatever they are."

"May I ask if you are a lawyer?"

Mr. Brown coughed once or twice before replying.

"He is," said Andrew decisively, and Mr. Brown seemed content to let this reply pass as his own.

"You can talk to me with the utmost frankness," he said; "in fact, I infinitely prefer it."

"Well," began Heriot, "the simple fact of the matter is that I am growing rapidly younger."

"Ah?" commented Mr. Brown.

It was curious that he should exchange a quick glance, not with the lady whose interests he was representing, but with her errant lover's faithful son.

"Yes," said Mr. Walkingshaw, warming to his narrative, "I am literally racing backwards. It is like a drive over a road one has passed along before, only in the opposite direction and much faster. I simply whizz past the old milestones. Now, a man who is behaving like that has no business to marry an already mature lady, who is growing older at the rate of, say one, while he is growing younger at the rate of, say ten; has he, Mr. Brown?"

"No," replied Mr. Brown emphatically, "I honestly don't think he has."

Heriot was delighted with this confirmation of his judgment. He threw a glance at the widow to see how she took it, but her eyes were cast down, and she displayed no emotion whatever.

"That's the long and the short of the matter, Mr. Brown. I make the profoundest apologies to my charming relative; but if you agree that I acted for the best, I suppose we might as well adjourn and have a cup of tea."

"Just one moment," said Mr. Brown gently. "I should like to have a few more particulars regarding this very interesting phenomenon, if you don't mind."

"Not a bit, my dear sir. It's a very natural curiosity."

"You feel, of course, a considerable exhilaration of spirits in consequence of this change?"

"I'm simply bursting with them."

"Naturally, naturally. And you propose, no doubt, to exercise your activities in some beneficial way?"

"In a dozen ways. I've already been the means of securing two happy engagements for my youngest children."

"And breaking off two," said Andrew.

His father turned to him with a frown. This was hardly the support he expected. To his great pleasure, the sympathetic Mr. Brown also disapproved of the interruption.

"One thing at a time, please," said he, and resumed his intelligent inquiries. "These young persons to whom your children have become engaged—they are hardly the matches you would have made at one time, are they?"

"I'm afraid I was a bit of an ass at one time," Mr. Walkingshaw confessed.

"I see, I see. And now, as to the engagements you have broken off—you felt yourself inspired, prompted from within, as it were, to bring them to an end, I take it?"

"You've put it deuced well," said Heriot.

"Did you feel in any way inspired from without—any visions or voices, so to speak, any manifestations or appearances—anything of that kind?"

Mr. Walkingshaw looked a little puzzled.

"The voices of romance and love, and that sort of thing, I certainly heard."

"Quite so, quite so, Mr. Walkingshaw. You heard them, did you? Well, it's not every one who hears these things."

He smiled pleasantly, and Mr. Walkingshaw became confirmed in his opinion that this was quite one of the most agreeable men he had met for a long time.

"May I ask whether you propose to take any more steps to put this poor world of ours to rights?" inquired Mr. Brown.

"He is taking control of the business again," said Andrew.

"Again?" retorted Heriot. "When did I ever lose control of the business, I'd like to know? I've had my holiday, and now I'm going to make things hum in the office."

"You are going to make them hum?" asked Mr. Brown. "Do you mean you are going to override your partner's decisions, and so on?"

"My dear Mr. Brown, if I waited for his decisions, I'd be kicking up my heels in the office half the day. Metaphorically speaking, my son is somewhat like a man who fills his bath from a teacup instead of turning on the tap. I don't override his decisions, I simply anticipate them."

"That is his account of it," said Andrew darkly.

"Well, well," smiled Mr. Brown, "I think I understand. And now, Mr. Walkingshaw, may I ask if there is anything else you propose to do?"

This time he glanced at Andrew, as if courting information.

"He is altering his will," said the junior partner.

"Ah!" remarked his visitor again.

Mr. Walkingshaw drew himself up.

"That is my own affair," he said, with dignity.

"Quite so—quite so," replied Mr. Brown in that peculiarly soothing voice he had at his command. "We would wish to make no inquiries into that. Only, there's just one thing I'd like to know—you don't mean to let the grass grow under your feet, I take it?"

"No fears," said Heriot. "What I mean to do, I'm going to do at once. By Jingo, I'll be under age in a few years! I've got to do things promptly."

"Thank you," replied Mr. Brown suavely, "I think that is all I want to know. We needn't detain you any longer, Mr. Walkingshaw."

It struck Heriot that this was a funny way for the agreeable Mr. Brown to treat him in his own house. He assumed the air of a host at once.

"Then we'll go up and have some tea. Come along, Mr. Brown."

"I think," said his visitor politely, "that possibly your son and I had better have just a word or two with this lady first, if you'll permit us."

"Certainly, my dear sir; just come up when you're ready."

As he went upstairs, it suddenly struck him as rather odd that her connection by marriage and legal adviser should refer to Madge as "this lady"; and also that she should have sat so silently through a conversation which primarily concerned herself. But then such rum things did happen in this amusing world that it was never worth while worrying.

---

CHAPTER VII

Stroking the cat and sipping his tea, Mr. Walkingshaw conversed pleasantly with his sister. Jean and Frank had gone into the country, and the two sat alone together in the drawing-room.

"Brown?" said Miss Walkingshaw. "I never knew the Dunbars had a relative of that name. Who will he be?"

"I seem to mind seeing his face somewhere," replied her brother, "but more about him I can't tell you, except that he's a very pleasant fellow. Hullo, Andrew, where's Brown?"

The junior partner had entered alone.

"He had to go," said he.

"Dash it, he might have said good-by."

Andrew made no answer. He was looking at his aunt in a way that he had borrowed from his father's bygone manner. Though he had only quite recently begun to practise it seriously, he was sufficiently expert to convey unmistakably the fact that he desired her to withdraw. She rose obediently.

"Hullo, where are you off to?" asked her brother.

"I have things to do, Heriot," she answered nervously, "just a few things to do."

As she passed Andrew she paused, and her lips framed a question. There was something in his manner that frightened her; strange things were happening, she felt sure. But his glowering eye silenced her, and she faded noiselessly out of the room. Then Andrew advanced upon his father.

"Just run your eye through that," he said quietly.

He handed his father a large double sheet of blue foolscap containing a great deal of printed matter. The particular portion of it to which Mr. Walkingshaw's attention was directed ran thus—

"Certificate of Emergency

It was then dated, and signed, "George W. Downie."

"Asylum—Dr. Downie!" gasped Heriot. "But—what is this?"

"It says on the paper. Just look—can't you read?"

Heriot gave a convulsive start.

"Was—was that Dr. Downie?"

His son nodded.

Again Heriot's startled eyes ran over the certificate, and then they turned upon his son. It is regrettable that his next words were not more worthy of his reputation.

"You d——d young skunk!"

"It's no use swearing," his son replied coldly.

Mr. Walkingshaw fell back in his chair and seemed to meditate.

"You wired to Glasgow for him?" he inquired in a moment.

"I did."

"So that I shouldn't recognize him, I suppose?"

"Naturally."

"What a sell if I'd spotted him and talked what the silly fool would have thought sense!"

"You didn't," said Andrew.

Mr. Walkingshaw shook his head.

"Man, I'd never have given you credit for the brains to do the like of this."

Then he started.

"I see it all now! It was Madge put you up to the idea! Eh? Oh, you needn't trouble to deny it; I know you haven't the imagination yourself."

With a calmer air he studied the paper afresh.

"It's only for three days," he observed in a cheerier tone.

"Do you actually imagine you're likely to get out at the end of three days?"

Mr. Walkingshaw looked at his son steadily.

"You know perfectly well that every word I said was true."

Andrew remained coldly immovable.

"I am no judge myself. I'd sooner depend on Dr. Downie's opinion."

"Hypocrite to the last!" scoffed Heriot. "Can you look me in the face, Andrew, and tell me that you honestly thought it was insanity to make friends of my children and help them to marry the people they loved, and divide my money fairly among you all? Can you?"

"Permit me to remind you that it was not I who signed the certificate."

There was a moment's very dead silence, and then Heriot asked—

"Then do you actually mean to shut me up in a lunatic asylum for the rest of my days?"

Andrew had some of the finer points of the legal mind. He noted the trace of emotion in his father's voice, and knew he was fairly on top at last. To let this fact sink still further into Heriot's mind, he eyed him in austere silence for a few moments before he answered—

"If I have to, I shall."

"If you have to? What d'ye mean?"

"I mean that I am not going to have my business ruined—"

"Ruined! Can you not stick to the truth on a single point? I am putting new life into it!"

"I don't care for your kind of life, thanks," said Andrew primly, "and I repeat that I am not going to have my business—enlivened, if that's how you choose to put it, and my family disgraced, and my reputation lost; and if I let you go on another day as you've been going, it'll be too late to save any of them. But I don't want to be harder than I can help." He paused for a moment, and his lip grew longer and straighter. "So I'll offer you an alternative."

"Well?"

"If you'll guarantee to clear out of the country and not come back again, I'll take no further proceedings on the strength of this certificate. I don't want to put you in an asylum any more than you want to go, but I've got to protect myself."

Mr. Walkingshaw mused.

"When do you want me to start?"

"At once."

"At once!"

"Yes, at once, before you see anybody else."

"I'm not even to say good-by?"

"No."

"You've got some game on," said Heriot.

"I've got to protect myself and my family."

His father looked at him searchingly; but his face remained a solemn medallion of virtue. Then Mr. Walkingshaw again fell back in his chair and mused. Gradually the flicker of a smile appeared in his eye. It spread to his lips, and he sprang up cheerfully.

"It's not half a bad idea!" he exclaimed. "I'm just getting to the age when a young man ought to go about a bit and see something of the world. New Zealand now—that's a fine country—or Japan—or Texas. By Gad, you know I've several times wanted to do a bit of roughing it and big game shooting lately."

His son looked at him suspiciously. This cheerfulness was unusual in people he had worsted, and the unusual was always to be distrusted. But to the less vigilant, ordinary mind Mr. Walkingshaw merely presented the spectacle of a man of young middle-age with a heart some ten years younger still.

"Of course it will be a wrench," he added, with a sobered air. "I'll miss 'em all: Frank—Ellen—Jean. By Gad, I shall miss Jean. However, it need only be for a year or two. Meanwhile—by Jingo, there's no doubt about it!—this is the chance of my life. Let's see now, what does one need? A revolver with six thingamajigs—top-boots and riding breeches—a good compass—"

The chill voice of Andrew interrupted this catalogue.

"Once you go away, you've got to stay away."

"Stay away!"

"Your allowance will depend on that."

"My allowance!" gasped Heriot.

"Your estate has got to be administered by me just as though you were" (instinctively this pious young man's face grew solemn) "taken away from us."

"I wish I were not your father," sighed Heriot. "In happier circumstances, the pleasure of kicking you would just be immense."

Andrew disliked physical brutality. His cheeks grew flabbier at the very idea of such an outrage—even in theory.

"If you were to try anything of that kind, I warn you I'd withdraw my alternative."

His father laughed reassuringly.

"Oh, you needn't keep your back against the bookcase: I'll leave the job for some luckier devil."

A thought struck him.

"By the way, I've promised to give Jean and Frank enough to keep them going. You'll see to that?"

"I'll carry out the provisions made when you were in your right mind."

"What provisions?"

"The terms of your will."

Mr. Walkingshaw looked at his son steadily and in silence. After a full minute under this stare Andrew began to grow uneasy.

"There's to be no more nonsense, I warn you," he said.

"You mean either to rob your brother and sister of their money, or revenge yourself by stopping their marriages? By Heaven, Andrew—"

He broke off and plunged into meditation. Then his eyes began to smile, though his lips were now compressed.

"Very well," he murmured.

His son still felt a vague sense of apprehension.

"Mind, you've got to stay abroad."

"For ever?"

"You must give me your word you won't come back for two years certain, and after that you lose your allowance if you land in Great Britain or Ireland."

"Including the Channel Islands?"

"Including them."

"I see your game," smiled Heriot. "But I give you my word. Poor Jean, poor Frank—"

"You're not even to write to them," interrupted Andrew.

Mr. Walkingshaw stroked his chin meditatively.

"I agree to that," he said. "Any more conditions?"

The smile that prevailed in his discomfited parent's eye perturbed the junior partner. He warily scanned all possible loopholes.

"You're not to communicate with Madge Dunbar."

"God forbid!" said Heriot fervently.

"Nor my aunt."

"Bless her, poor soul; no fears of that."

"I think that's all," said Andrew reluctantly.

So long as those eyes continued to look at him like that, he desired to pile condition on condition. But the overwhelming advantages of being encumbered with no imagination occasionally—very occasionally—have compensating drawbacks. He could imagine nothing else to be guarded against.

"Then I'd better pack and be off."

"You had," said Andrew.

Just as he was leaving the room, Heriot turned and asked—

"You've heard of changelings?"

Andrew stared.

"Do you not mind hearing of goblins that get put into cradles instead of the real babies? That accounts for you. Thank the Lord, I need never again claim the discredit of begetting you!"

---

CHAPTER VIII

A luggage-laden cab clattered over the granite cubes and passed out of the ring of tall mansions and the shadow of the stately trees within the garden. The career of Heriot Walkingshaw, W.S., was ended, and shocked respectability could lower again her up-rolled eyes and see nothing more outrageous than a prowling cat. May her troubles always end as happily! Undoubtedly, had the full facts been there and then made public, a statue of the junior partner (completely clad) would have adorned that decorous garden.

But his modest reticence was remarkable. He stood in the somber hall listening intently to make sure that the cab really did ascend the steep street towards the station, when his ally, after peering over the banisters, ran downstairs to meet him. He was just heaving a deep sigh of relief.

"Did some one go away in a cab?" she asked.

He looked at her sharply.

"Quite possibly."

In her eyes gleamed a sudden hint of suspicion.

"Was it Heriot?"

He took his time before answering very deliberately—

"It was."

"Where is he going?"

Again he paused. As every moment took his father farther from them, so every moment was precious.

"Can you not guess?"

"What!" she cried. "You're actually putting him into an asylum?"

"It's the best place for him."

She seized his arm.

"Did you give him the alternative?"

With a chaste movement he withdrew the arm.

"I gave him an alternative, certainly."

Her black eyes seemed to pierce into his brain. He disliked being looked at like that exceedingly.

"Our alternative?"

"Our?" he questioned.

"The alternative we discussed last night?"

"We discussed a good many things."

She kept following him up till his back was nearly against the front door.

"Did you offer him the alternative of keeping his promise to me?"

"Look out," he muttered. "Some of the servants may be coming."

"Did you?"

"Would you marry a man that's off his head?"

"He isn't; he was only pretending!"

"That's not what Dr. Downie thought."

"Dr. Downie! What did he know!"

"He certified him."

He was backed against the front door now.

"Did you offer Heriot that alternative?"

He paused for a moment. Heriot must be at the station by now, and he had not many spare minutes before the train started.

"No, I did not," he answered.

The sympathetic widow's hand shot out; there was a smack and then a thud. The smack was caused by a momentary encounter between the hand and his spherical cheek, the thud by a meeting of his head and the door.

"You miserable creature!" she hissed.

With a look such as only the righteous can ever hope to wear, and that in the moment of martyrdom, he watched her rush upstairs sobbing.

And thus the coalition, having served its beneficent purpose, came abruptly to an end. A great deal might be written in this connection, adducing this instance to illustrate the wider fields of statecraft, but unfortunately the present narrative is a simple record of facts, and not a philosophical treatise. The immediate consequence of the episode was that on the following morning Mrs. Dunbar set out for the west of Ross-shire to pay a long-promised visit to a third cousin who possessed several thousand acres of moorland in that vicinity.

---

CHAPTER IX

It was on the following morning that Jean and Frank returned, their faces glowing with country sunshine and spring wind, their hearts quickened with anticipation. In the train coming home they had exchanged many confidences. Could he possibly manage to get married before he went out to India? Frank wondered. Would Lucas have to wait till he had sold a few more pictures? wondered Jean. He ran whistling up the steps and rang the bell. She burst radiantly into the somber hall. And then, at twelve o'clock in the morning of an ordinary working week-day, they found the junior partner at home to receive them. Such a portent had never before been seen.

"Where's father?" asked Jean.

Andrew's cheeks twitched nervously; yet on the whole he maintained a compassionate expression highly honorable to his fraternal instincts. In a hushed voice he addressed his sister.

"I want to have a word with you," said he.

He took her apart from her brother and shut the library door securely. Frank was such a hot-tempered young fellow; and he had suffered one physical outrage already. In a voice as appropriate as his face he gently broke the news—

"Our father has been removed to an asylum."

"Removed—to an asylum!" gasped Jean.

She did not strike him, but on the whole he was even more glad when that interview came to an end than when he saw the widow's muscular back at last turn from the front door.

---

A few days afterwards a tall man in a sportsmanlike ulster walked up the gangway of a steamship bound for a port in South America. He was followed on board by a friend with very blue eyes and a cavalier mustache. They talked for a few minutes and then shook hands affectionately.

"Well, Lucas, good-by, old fellow," said the passenger. "And remember now what you're to tell them. They're not to drop a hint—not a whisper of what they know. Just keep your tails up all of you, as best you can. Handy thing, this revolver we chose. I must practise shooting from the hip pocket. I say, take special care of Jean. Tell her I know how plucky she is—she'll be staunch—she'll wait. Tell her I'll often be thinking—Hullo, last bell; you'd better get on shore."

A little later the steamer was in the middle of the gray Thames, bearing Heriot, his fortunes, and his six-shooter far, far from the office of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower. The protagonist of virtuous respectability sat there triumphantly enshrined. He had done everything a good man could reasonably be expected to do; only he had not imagined Lucas Vernon waving a farewell to his late partner.

---

[Pg 300-302]