ir host.

"Who put it up, father?" asked the strange youth plaintively.

Lord Kilconquar shook his head, and again the startled company followed
his lead.

"Look, Andrew!" cried his aunt, pointing to a tinted photograph of James
Heriot Walkingshaw at the age of twenty, which hung above the
mantelpiece. "Oh, just look at the resemblance!"

The young man regarded this work of art with evident emotion.

"My sainted grandfather!" he murmured, though quite loud enough for the
company to hear.

The poor lady stretched her thin clasped hands beseechingly under
Andrew's very nose.

"He says it himself--he says it himself!" she pleaded. "For Heriot's
sake, don't disown him!"

There was a rustle of silk, decisive and ominous. It was caused by the
skirt of the chaste lady of Pettigrew.

"Good-night," she said.

She only touched her brother's hand with the tips of her fingers, and
her stony glance gave him his first clear vision of the appalling chasm
that yawned beneath his feet.

"Maggie!" he besought her, "you don't believe it?"

"Can you not disgrace yourself _quietly_?" she hissed, and a moment
later was gone.

Andrew realized that he was already in the chasm, hurtling downwards
with fearful velocity. One after another, his guests followed the
example of his scandalized sister; and their host was too unmanned to
hold up his head and carry off the partings with the air of injured
innocence that alone might have given his reputation another (though a
feeble) chance.

As they left the hang-dog figure that so lately was a respected Writer
to the Signet, they said to one another that all was over socially with
Andrew Walkingshaw. And it had been so public, so dramatic, that they
feared--of course they hoped against hope, but still they feared that
the fine old business could not but suffer too. In London one might
disgrace oneself and yet retain one's clients; but could one here? Well,
anyhow, that and many other interesting aspects of the case would be
debated by all Edinburgh to-morrow morning.

Meanwhile, the unhappy victim of fate was left alone with his wife, his
aunt, and his long-lost offspring. A desperate gesture dismissed Miss
Walkingshaw; yet, though she trembled beneath his wrathful eye, she
could not refrain from beseeching him again--

"He must be, Andrew--he must be! Just compare him with the picture."

And then she shrank out of the drawing-room.

"Leave us," he commanded his wife.

Her pal