r 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