Marjory sate at the window pretending to be busy over laces and ribbons, but in reality watching Dr. Kennedy's deft hands lit up by the shaft of light from his microscope lamp, as, with the aid of a tiny pair of tweezers, and a watchmaker's glass fixed in one eye, he laid out the almost invisible film of some sea plant on a slide. For they, that is to say, Marjory, Will, and the doctor, had spent the day after the theatricals in dredging for oysters, as a relief to what the latter called fishing for men; and something interesting had come up in the dredger, which had to be set up despite the waning light. He looked more natural when so employed, and yet, despite the grizzling hair and the thin brown face, she seemed to trace in him as she had never done before a hint of that figure on last night's stage, which had opened her eyes to love in its passion, its unreason. And with this fancy came the remembrance of Paul Macleod's swift resource, his kindness, his courage. And both memories confused her, making her feel as if the old landmarks had been removed, and she could not be certain even of those she knew intimately; as if a man's ideals might yield no clue to his actions. For Tom must surely have felt that storm and stress before he could portray it so vividly? And then, even if this were not so, his vast experience of things which she had been accustomed to despise remained inexplicable.

"I had no idea that you were so frivolous, Tom," she said suddenly, laying down even her pretence of work.

He wheeled round in his chair instantly, and let the glass fall from his eye. "Are you aware that that is a very odd remark to make to a man who believes he has found a new infusorian which may revolutionise all our theories, especially when it is made by a young lady who is busy, or ought to be busy, over her first ball-dress."

"Ought I?" She smiled back a little wearily. "I'm afraid I'm a bad pupil, Tom. I was just wishing Lady George could have postponed it till you had gone."

He gave a little grimace. "Thank you, my dear, I daresay it would be pleasanter,----"

"Don't tease, Tom. You know what I mean, perfectly; it interrupts the holiday."

"Which is perilously near its close, by the way. I have to go back next Thursday."

"Yes, I know. But don't talk of it; let us enjoy it while it lasts!"

He turned back to his work again hurriedly. "Now, that is what I should call truly frivolous. So be it. However, Vogue la galÈre! It is a very easy philosophy, at any rate."

They were silent again for a space, and then she began again. "What I meant was, that you must have seen so much of the world; and then you are so interested in it. Last night," she hesitated a little, "it struck me, Tom, that for all I knew, you might have--have seen something like it when you were through the Franco-Prussian war, for instance. You--you were quite a boy then, weren't you?"

"A baby, so to speak. I remember nearly fainting over the first wound I saw. Yes, Marjory, I've seen such romantic young fools many a time. I see a good deal of that sort of thing necessarily in my profession. It is human nature."

"I suppose so," she said curtly. "Well, I suppose I ought to go and dress. Oh, Tom! why couldn't Lady George have put it off, and why won't you let me stay at home?"

"Because, when, after infinite toil, you have caught a netful of mankind for theatricals, you naturally choose the next day for a dance. And because a girl ought to go to a ball. How can she tell her metier if she only keeps to one? Besides, it is your holiday."

"I shan't like it a bit, and I shall feel dowdy in this thing." She held up a white stuff gown, with the oddest mixture of self-complacency and disdain. "Of course, it will do quite well, and it would have been recklessly extravagant of me to get another, seeing that I shan't want evening dresses at a Board School; but I shall be a dowdy all the same."

"I doubt it," remarked her guardian, busy adjusting his screws. "Now, you really ought to go and dress, my dear. In my time girls----"

"In your time!" she flashed out. "Why? Why, you are quite up to date, Tom, and I--I am hopelessly arriÉrÉe, especially in my dress! Oh, dear f I suppose I must----"

A minute afterwards she came flying down the stairs, followed by Mrs. Cameron, who had evidently been on the watch for the occasion in Marjory's room, and was determined not to lose the scene downstairs. It was rather a pretty one, though the first words were distinctly sordid.

"Oh, Tom! what did it cost?"

"Now, that really is the rudest question! I'm surprised at you," returned Dr. Kennedy, trying to jest, though something in the girl's face told him she was not far from tears.

"But it is dreadful," she began.

"Naethin' o' the sort," broke in Mrs. Cameron, breathlessly. "Just don't belie the nature God gave to you. It's just beautiful, and the doctor and me has been agog these three days lest it should not come in time, for it is ill getting things to Gleneira from Paris."

"Paris!" echoed Marjory. "Yes, I thought it looked like Paris! How foolish of you, Tom!"

"And so that is all the thanks you're giving him. Wait, my lass, till you're as auld as I am, with no a soul in the wide world caring a bawbee if you're clad in sackcloth and ashes, and then see if ye woudna like to be made a lily o' the field. Just arrayed in glory wi'out a toil or a spin."

"Quite right, Mrs. Cameron," put in Dr. Kennedy, with a laugh. "She will have plenty of toiling and spinning by and bye; why shouldn't she be a flower and do credit to us all for one evening?"

She looked at him from head to foot. "A flower for you to wear in your buttonhole, apparently. Tom, are all men alike?"

"I am human, at any rate," he said quietly.

"Oh, come away, come away!" cried Mrs. Cameron, impatiently. "Come and put it on, like a good lassie, and don't be chopping logic. It's time enough to be an angel when you've done being a girl, and you'll have more chance o' bein' one if ye make the best o' your gifts in this world, I can tell you. So come away, my dear, there may be a stitch or two a-wantin', and the time is none too long."

But Marjory stood her ground even after the old lady had bustled upstairs again, and she looked so serious that Dr. Kennedy was driven into suggesting that if she preferred it, she might wear her old gown.

"It is not that," she said slowly. "It is beautiful. I could see that, at a glance; but--Tom, did Mrs. Vane choose it?"

His laugh had a certain content in it. "My dear child, I prefer people to be dressed as I like, and I am generally supposed to have good taste."

"Very, I should say," she remarked, with a curious accent of regret in her voice.

But the fact was indubitable. When she came down again in a shimmer of silver and white, set cunningly with frosted rowan berries showing a glint of scarlet here and there, she knew so well that her dress was perfect, that from a new bashfulness she turned the tables on him swiftly.

"Tom," she cried, "I declare you have waxed the ends of your moustache!"

"And if I had been in Italy, I should have curled my hair, too," he replied imperturbably. "It is not a crime."

"And that coat! It is not your ordinary one."

"It is not. The one I use here--since you are so particular--is a dress jacket; the correct thing, I assure you, for a shooting lodge. But I have the misfortune to be honorary surgeon to a potentate somewhere, who insists on brass buttons on state occasions, so I don't happen to have the intermediate affair. Besides, there are to be lord-lieutenants and generals hanging round this evening from the Oban gathering. If that is satisfactory to your highness, we should be going."

"And that red thing in your buttonhole?" she persisted, going close up to him and touching the bit of ribbon with dainty curious finger. "It is the Legion of Honour, I suppose."

"It is called so; you look as if that were a crime also."

"I did not know you had it, that was all," she said. And then, Will, coming in full of fuss because his very occasional white tie had not been folded properly in the wash, changed the venue by declaring that fine feathers make fine birds, and that he was half ashamed to belong to them.

"Naethin' o' the sort, Will," snapped Mrs. Cameron. "It's the fine birds that grows the fine feathers, as ye'd see ony day o' the week if ye went to my hen yard."

"And it is always the male bird which attends most to personal appearance," remarked Marjory, sedately. Yet, despite her pretended disdain, as they passed down the drawing-room corridor at Gleneira House, she paused involuntarily to look for a second at what she saw reflected in a pier glass at the end.

"We do look nice, Tom," she said, with a faint laugh; "but I feel like the old woman. I'm sure it isn't I. Now, you look as if you were born to it."

He had not the heart to tell her that she looked it also, so took refuge in claiming his right of the first waltz.

"But I can't dance. You seem to forget, Tom, that I have never even seen a waltz danced."

His face fell. "What an ass I am, when I could have taught you in half an hour. But you would pick it up in the first turn; let us try, at any rate."

"Please don't ask me," she began. "I don't want to dance. In fact, I didn't tell you--on purpose."

"That was unkind," he replied, and this plain statement of his unvarnished opinion making the girl see her silence in the same light, she added, hastily, "I will dance later on, if it will please you."

He laid his hand on hers as it rested on his arm and looked at her with a kindly smile. "That is right! It always gives me pleasure when Mademoiselle Grauds-serieux unbends a little. I want you to enjoy yourself to-night. Why not? You are young, happy, and will probably be--pardon my incurable frivolity--the best-dressed girl in the room. But there is our hostess, and after that I had better go and find a partner. It is a duty at the beginning of a ball. Shall we say number four or six for ours?"

"Oh, six, please; something may have happened by that time."

She felt, to tell the truth, as if something must be going to happen, as she sate watching the scene from the quiet corner where Dr. Kennedy left her. The lights, the music, the buzz of conversation seemed to go to her head, and the sight of him skimming past like a swallow made her suddenly regret her refusal. It seemed easy and pleasant. Yes; it must be pleasant, and there were four more dances to sit out before her chance came.

"Is it one of the mortal sins, Miss Carmichael?" came Paul's voice behind her. He had seen her enter with Dr. Kennedy, and, aided by Mrs. Vane's one-syllabled verdict "Worth," had guessed the history of the dress. And there he was looking very handsome, his arm still in a sling so as to give him a pretext for laziness if he chose, and meaning mischief out of sheer contrariety.

"I can't dance," she answered, flushing a little, "but I am going to try number six with Tom. I am almost sorry now I didn't say four; I think I should like it."

"Try four with me," he answered, seating himself beside her.

"But it will hurt your arm," she began.

"If it does we can sit down again; but I don't think it will. I find I can generally do what I want to do without serious injury either to my mind or my body." And then he added in a lower tone, "I should not ask you if I was incapable; but if you would rather not trust me I must submit."

"But Tom--Dr. Kennedy----" she began, doubtfully.

"Is dancing number four with Mrs. Vane. I heard them settle it just now."

Why this information should have influenced her decision is not clear, since she was perfectly prepared to see them dance not once but many times together; yet it did, as Paul had guessed it would. Still, when he had gone to play the part of host elsewhere, she began to regret her promise, and the sight of him returning with the first bars of number four to claim her made her attempt escape by pleading the risk to his scorched arm. "It was surely," she said, "rash to have removed the sling."

"I am always rash," he replied. "Come! you owe me some reward, and I am quite capable of taking care of you."

His words brought back the remembrance of the night before, and sent a thrill through her; the next instant it seemed to her that she was alone with him again, despite the whirl of dancers around them. Alone with him, and a bunch of red rowans which, for the first time, she noticed he wore in his buttonhole, and to which he began drawing her attention at once.

"We wear the same badge once more, you see, Miss Carmichael," he said fluently. "It must be your welcome to a new world, as the white heather was to me. Only, as usual, I am natural, and you are artificially iced. Which is best? Well, if you will defend your position, I will defend mine; for we must agree to differ since I cannot freeze, and I sometimes wonder if you can thaw. Perhaps if I had let you burn a little longer last night I might have found out and been happy. I almost wish I had, only then--only then," he repeated in a louder tone of triumph, "I shouldn't have had the pleasure of taking you a whole turn round the room without your remembering that it was your first turn--No! don't stop just because you do remember; another turn will finish your lesson."

"That was very clever of you!" laughed Marjory, as they went on, she gaining confidence at every step.

"I think it was," he replied; but he did not add that his art had extended to exchanging the bouquet he had originally worn for some rowan berries filched from the decorations.

But Mrs. Vane, who had been more or less responsible for the discarded jasmine, noticed it at once, and her voice was hard as she remarked to her partner, "Your pupil has preferred another professor, Dr. Kennedy; the patient instead of the physician. It is really very foolish of Paul, with his arm."

Tom Kennedy felt glad of the possibility of ignoring the first part of her remark, for he was conscious of bitter disappointment, not to say vexation. "He is not likely to hurt; it was the merest scorch." And then his obstinacy made him add, as much for his own edification as for hers, "She is lucky to begin so well; a tall man can steer better as a rule."

Mrs. Vane smiled. "That is overdone, my friend; there is not a better steerer in the room than you are."

"How can you tell; you need no guidance?" he began, when she stopped him peremptorily.

"Don't, please; if you knew how sick of it I am. It comes, I know, as part of the business with the lights, and the music, and the coffee, and the ices; but you and I are such old friends." There was rather a crush at the moment, and her partner being too busy to speak, she had the conversation to herself for the time, and went on evenly, "How well they dance! and her dress is simply perfection. I must get you to choose mine. Yes! they look a charming couple; for he is wonderfully handsome--handsomer than when he was younger--don't you think so?"

"I never met him before this summer," replied her victim; and, to change the subject, added, "but I knew his brother Alick in Paris. Very like him, but not so fine a fellow--rather--well! he got into a very fast set, and that accounts for a great deal."

Mrs. Vane looked up in sudden interest. "Ah! I had almost forgotten. Of course, he had a brother who died."

"Yes! quite suddenly. By all accounts none too soon for the estates. He had half ruined them."

"And so the present laird has to marry money, if he will. But you never can count on Paul Macleod doing the wise thing. A pretty face, a dress from Worth's, a---- Is that the end? Then I should like a cup of coffee, if you please."

And as they passed down the corridor she passed to other subjects, leaving that barb to rankle. She was not often so cruel, but, to tell truth, she was really angry with Paul, and told herself there was no use in trying to keep him out of mischief. Doubtless, she had so far startled him by her plain speaking as to prevent him from bringing matters to a crisis with Alice; but here, at the slightest provocation, he was flirting outrageously with Marjory, and looking----

"A message for you, sir," said the butler, coming up to Dr. Kennedy, as they were about to return to the ball-room. "A little boy, sir, to say a Mrs. Duncan is ill, and wants to see you."

"Little Paul!" cried Mrs. Vane; "poor old woman! I am sorry. Where is he, Grierson? In the housekeeper's room? Then don't let us disturb you; I'll show Dr. Kennedy the way."

"Why should you trouble?" he began.

"'Tis no trouble, my friend, and you may need something to take with you."

"I may need nothing," he answered. "I was round seeing her, as you know, a few days ago; and she might die at any moment; her heart is almost worn out."

Mrs. Vane's gave a sudden throb. What if she died, and carried the secret with her, just when it was most needed? The thought became insistent as she listened to the boy's frightened tale of how his grandmother had looked so strange, and bidden him seek Dr. Kennedy, and then seemed to fall asleep.

"You had better keep the lad here awhile," said the latter, in an undertone. "He has been delayed by not knowing where to find me, and, without stimulants at hand, a fainting fit might pass into death." He turned to ask for some brandy, and was off into the still moonlit night hastily.

She stood looking after him for a moment, and then made her way back to the ball-room mechanically. Another waltz had begun, and she hastily scanned the dancers for Paul's figure, but neither he nor Marjory were to be seen. Without an instant's hesitation she went to the conservatory, and found--what she knew she would find.

"Excuse my interrupting you," she said, "but I have a message from Dr. Kennedy for Miss Carmichael. He has been called away for half an hour, but will be back then; and he hopes, my dear," she laid her hand on Marjory's arm affectionately, "that you will be ready for number ten. Meanwhile, Paul, you ought either to continue the lesson, or find Miss Carmichael another tutor. Ah! Major Bertie, have you found me! and I have turned the heel of my slipper and must go and put on another pair, but perhaps Miss Carmichael will console you."

She waited till they had moved out of sight, and then turned to Paul, almost passionately:

"And you--you are engaged for this dance, I presume?"

"You presume a little too far, my dear Violet," he replied dangerously. "I am a helpless cripple, and I cannot run in harness, no matter how skilful the whip may be. If you are going back to the ball-room may I give you my one arm?"

"No, thanks. I shall stay here."

Never in their lives before had they come so near a quarrel, and, even though Mrs. Vane was wise enough to see the provocation which her own loss of temper had given him, the fact decided her. The change of slippers included other alterations in her toilette, and five minutes afterwards she was following Dr. Kennedy to Peggy Duncan's cottage. The walk was nothing on that warm September night, and the excuse of a desire to help sufficiently reasonable, her kindness in such ways being proverbial. Many a deathbed had been cheered by her cheerful aid, and yet, nerved as she was by experience, she shrank back at the sight which met her eyes as she lifted the latch of the cottage and entered. For the deep box bed, whereon old Peggy had passed so many years, had been inconvenient, and Dr. Kennedy had lifted her to the table, where she lay unconscious, looking like death itself, in the limp, powerless sinking into the pillow of her grey head. The old woman's dreary prophecy came back to Mrs. Vane, though this was not certain death, as yet; since, with his back towards her, his warm hands clasping those cold ones, his face bent on the watch for some sign of life, stood Dr. Kennedy, trying the last resource of artificial respiration. There is nothing in the whole range of experience more absorbing, more pathetic than this struggle of the living for the dying, whether it be for the new-born babe doubtful of existence, or, as here, for an old worn-out heart. And if it is so, even among a crowd of eager helpers, what was it here in the little circle of dim light hedged in by darkness? Those two alone, so strangely contrasted. It had been a sharp, fierce transition, even to his experience, from, the ball-room full of lights and laughter; for Tom Kennedy was not of those whom use hardens. He was one of those to whom ever-widening vision discloses no clear horizon of dogmatic belief or unbelief, but a further distance fading away into the great, inconceivable, infinite mystery between which and him lay Life--Life, whose champion he was, whose colours he wore unflinchingly, counting neither its evil or its good. Life--nothing else. It is a queer mistress, taken so, but an absorbing one, and he scarcely slackened the rhythmic sweep of his arms even in his surprise at the figure which, after a moment's pause, stepped forward.

"You ought not to have come--it's no place for you; you had better go back and send me help; though I fear it is no use," he said authoritatively. For answer she slid her hands under the blanket he had thrown over the old woman's limbs, and began to rub them with a regularity matching his own.

"They would not help so well as I."

"You have done it before then?"

"Often--once all night long in cholera--a great friend--he died at dawn." Yet the memory which had brought tears many a time failed to touch her now, for her mind was intent on something else.

"Was she unconscious when you came?" she asked.

"Not quite. There were some letters on her mind, and after she had given them to me she went off--one often finds it so."

Then they were given! and she was too late! Yet stay! where could they be--in his coat, of course, which he had taken off and thrown aside on a chair for the sake of greater ease. Doubtless in the coat, for he must have had it on at first, when the old woman was still conscious.

"Perhaps hot water," she suggested, looking towards the kettle swinging over the dying embers, but he shook his head, and she stayed where she was. Ah! that was surely a change--a greyer tinge on the worn, wrinkled old face, the faintest suspicion of a greater rest in the slack limbs.

Dr. Kennedy paused, still holding the hands in his, and bent closer.

In the great silence, Mrs. Vane seemed to hear her heart beating at the thought--not of rest, but unrest; for something would have to be done soon, if done at all. Nay! done now, for with a half-impatient sigh the doctor gave up the struggle, folded the old hands upon the old breast, and walked away to stand for a moment or two looking moodily into the dull fire.

"It is always a disappointment," he said, turning to her again, and mechanically going over to the dresser, where in the interval, calculating on habit, she had set a bowl of water and a towel. And she calculated rightly. As with his back towards her he washed his hands, hers were in the pocket of his coat, and two packets of letters lay on the floor behind the chair, as if they had slipped out, before she went forward, coat in hand.

"Thanks!" he said, still in the meshes of habit; but then he paused, and for an instant her heart was in her mouth, even though she had her excuse ready should he discover the absence of the letters. It was only, however, a remembrance of her which came to him.

"I must call someone," he said; "and you should go home at once. It was good of you to come."

"Yes! you had better call someone. I will stay till you return--I would rather."

"You are not afraid?--Ah! I forgot you had lived your life in India. I shall not be more than ten minutes if I go up the hill to the shepherd's; that will be the quickest."

"Do not hurry on my account," she replied, quietly beginning to pile some fresh peats on the fire. The doctor, as he turned for a last look, his hand on the latch, told himself she was a plucky little soul indeed; and yet, had he known it, her heart was melting within her at the deed she was about to do, and her only strength lay in the thought that it was for Paul's sake; for herself she would scorn such meanness.

The candle flickering to an end gave her little time, however, for consideration, and almost as the door closed the letters were in her hands. One long, blue, red-sealed, intact, as she remembered it, the other an open envelope yellow with age, tied round with thread, and containing several papers. Her wits were quick, and even as she looked, the certainty came to her that if the blue letter asked questions the other might answer them; besides there was no necessity for breaking a seal; she shrank from that as yet. Even now her hand shook, so that as she drew out the contents of the smaller envelope, something fell from it to the ground. She stooped to pick it up just as the candle flared up in the socket, and by the sudden blaze of light she saw on the fallen paper a signature, and a line or two of print.

Great heavens! a marriage certificate--Ronald Alister Macleod! Who was he?--Paul's brother, of course.

These thoughts flashing through her brain did not prevent her starting, as the flickering light seemed to give a semblance of movement to Peggy's folded hands. The next instant she was in darkness, still holding the letters, and she knelt hastily to coax a flame from the peats, for time was passing, and she must know--must read. Then, in swift suggestion, came the thought of substituting another packet; Dr. Kennedy would be none the wiser, and that would give her time. There must be other letters or papers at hand if she could find them. Oh for a light!--and yet people deemed such deeds to be deeds of darkness!----

As if in answer to her thought, a tongue of bluish flame leapt through the warmed peats, and by its light she found herself fumbling at the old bureau. For it was, as it always is at such times, as if fate were driving her against her will. Even as she acted, she felt that she had not meant to act thus--to search and pry! The old woman's cherished shroud, folded and frilled, made her shut one drawer hastily. And that was a step--a step surely, and yet not an atom of paper was to be seen anywhere! Ah! there was an old Bible on the shelf with blank pages. She had torn some out, and slipped them into the envelope none too soon, for Dr. Kennedy was at the door, breathless with running.

"I hurried all I could," he said; "for I felt I ought not to have left you--it was not fair. But they are coming, and then I will take you home." The words seemed to bring a remembrance, for he paused and began to feel in his pocket.

"What is it?" she asked, with a catch in her voice.

"The letters. I had them, certainly----"

"Perhaps they dropped--ah! here they are on the floor."

"Thanks." Then he paused, looking curiously at them. "I wonder why I fancied this one was tied with thread?"

Even in her anxiety she could not resist a smile at the keenness of the man; and how dull she had been, for there on the dresser stood two candles in brass candlesticks. If she had only noticed them she would have had time--would not, perhaps, have had this terror at her heart.

"It may have been tied," she said coolly; "and something may have dropped out when it fell. I'll light the candles and see." Then as she came forward with them in her hand, the deadly anxiety in her would brook no delay, and she asked, "Do you miss anything?"

"I do not know--I have not the least notion what it was supposed to contain; but this seems only to be an entry of births, marriages----Great heavens! are you ill?" For Mrs. Vane, who had stooped down on pretence of searching the floor, but in reality to hide her intense relief, was standing as if petrified, her face white as death.

"Nothing," she gasped, with an attempt at composure--"the strain, I suppose--it is foolish."

More than foolish, she told herself. It was perfectly insensate of her not to have remembered the custom of entering such items in the family Bible; and now she might unwittingly have given away the information she was attempting to conceal. If so, it would be better for her to know at once.

"Such registers contain many secrets," she began, when a look of curiosity in Dr. Kennedy's eyes made her pause.

"Secrets," he echoed; "why should there be any? though there is one in a way," he added, holding out the paper to her. It was the last entry to which he pointed, and it ran thus: "Jeanie Duncan, born 17th April, 18--; married----; died 20th August, 18--." "A sad blank that," he continued, adding, after a pause: "Perhaps the other letter may be more important."

Perhaps it might be, and Mrs. Vane, as she waited, felt her breath coming fast and short. It seemed an eternity of time until once more he held something out for her to read, and turning silently to where the dead woman lay, drew the sheet tenderly over the worn face. "The irony of fate, indeed," he murmured as she read:--

"Dear Madam,--We have to advise you of the death of our esteemed client, Mr. John Duncan, of Melbourne, Australia, and to inform you that under his will you, as his widow, come into property amounting to close on £100,000."

Mrs. Vane's hand holding the letter fell to her side, and Dr. Kennedy's voice said gravely:

"Strange, isn't it, that the letter was never opened? All that money, and a pauper's death----"

The voice was his, but it might have been the accusing angel's for the effect it had on Violet Vane. She gave one step forward, her arms outstretched as if for pity, and with a little cry sank to her knees. Her head was pillowed on the old woman's breast when Dr. Kennedy, catching her as she fell, found that she had fainted, and anathematised himself as a consummate ass for taking her at her own estimation. Plucky as she was, the contrast had been too sharp. Life and Death--Poverty and Riches. The whole gamut of harmonies and discords lay in these words.