Miss Ailie; your prayer is granted.

CHAPTER XXVI

TOMMY REPENTS, AND IS NONE THE WORSE FOR IT

Mr. McLean wrote a few reassuring words to Miss Ailie, and having told
Gavinia to give the note to her walked quietly out of the house; he was
coming back after he had visited Miss Kitty's grave. Gavinia, however,
did not knew this, and having delivered the note she returned dolefully
to the kitchen to say to Tommy, "His letter maun have been as thraun as
himsel', for as soon as she read it, down she plumped on her knees
again."

But Tommy was not in the kitchen; he was on the garden-wall watching
Miss Ailie's persecutor.

"Would it no be easier to watch him frae the gate?" suggested Gavinia,
who had not the true detective instinct.

Tommy disregarded her womanlike question; a great change had come over
him since she went upstairs; his bead now wobbled on his shoulders like
a little balloon that wanted to cut its connection with earth and soar.

"What makes you look so queer?" cried the startled maid. "I thought you
was converted."

"So I am," he shouted, "I'm more converted than ever, and yet I can do
it just the same! Gavinia, I've found a wy!"

He was hurrying off on Mr. McLean's trail, but turned to say, "Gavinia,
do you ken wha that man is?"

"Ower weel I ken," she answered, "it's Mr. McLean."

"McLean!" he echoed scornfully, "ay, I've heard that's one of the names
he goes by, but hearken, and I'll tell you wha he really is. That's the
scoundrel Stroke!"

No wonder Gavinia was flabbergasted. "Wha are you then?" she cried.

"I'm the Champion of Dames," he replied loftily, and before she had
recovered from this he was stalking Mr. McLean in the cemetery.

Miss Kitty sleeps in a beautiful hollow called the Basin, but the stone
put up to her memory hardly marks the spot now, for with a score of
others it was blown on its face by the wind that uprooted so many trees
in the Den, and as it fell it lies. From the Basin to the rough road
that clings like a belt to the round cemetery dyke is little more than a
jump, and shortly after Miss Kitty's grave had been pointed out to him.
Mr. McLean was seen standing there hat in hand by a man on the road.
This man was Dr. McQueen hobbling home from the Forest Muir; he did not
hobble as a rule, but hobble everyone must on that misshapen brae,
except Murdoch Gelatley, who, being short in one leg elsewhere, is here
the only straight man. McQueen's sharp eyes, howev