ere! She would be surprised too----"

"She was that, sir,--and a bit disappointed, it seemed to me----"

Yes, there _was_ a twinkle in the old fellow's eyes! Oh, he knew, he
knew without a doubt. Trust old Hamish for not missing much that was
to the fore. He and his old wife, Jannet Gordon, had been in Lady
Elspeth's service for over forty years, ever since her leddyship
married into the family, and Lady Elspeth trusted them both implicitly
and discussed most matters very freely with them. The dilatations of
those three shrewd old people, concerning things in general, and the
men and women of their acquaintance in particular, would have been
rare, rare hearing.

"Well, I'll call again in a day or two, Hamish," and he went away
along the gloomy streets, which were all ablaze with soft April
sunshine, and yet to him had suddenly become darkened. For he saw at a
glance all that this was like to do for him.

PART THE SECOND

I

The rare delight of his meetings with Margaret was at an end. Bluff
Fortune had slammed the door in his face, and White-handed Hope had
folded her golden wings and sat moping with melancholy mien.

He wandered into Kensington Gardens, but the daffodils swung their
heads despondently, and the gorgeous masses of hyacinths made him
think of funeral plumes on horses' heads.

He went on into the Park. She might be driving there, and he might
catch glimpse of her. But she was not, and all the rest were less than
nothing to him.

He found himself at Hyde Park Corner and back again at Kensington
Gate. But the door was still closed in his face, and he longed for the
sight of somebody else's as he had never longed before.

The post was of course open to him, but, at this stage at all events,
he felt that the written word would be eminently inadequate and
unsatisfying.

He wanted, when he approached that mighty question, to look into her
eyes and see her answer in their pure depths before it reached her
lips,--to watch the fluttering heart-signals in her sweet face and
learn from them more than all the words in the world could tell.
Letters were, at best, to actual speech but as actual speech would be
to all that his heart-quickened eyes would discover if he could but
ask her face to face.

And besides--he would have wished to make his footing somewhat surer
before putting everything to the test.

But, since matters had gone thus far, it was quite out of the question
to let them stop t