ve to the entrance to the Double
Dykes. Here he alighted and hastened up the path on foot, but before he
reached the house he met Dite Deuchars taking his ease beneath a tree,
and Dite could tell him that Grizel was not at home. "But there's
somebody in Double Dykes," he said, "though I kenna wha could be there
unless it's the ghost of the Painted Lady hersel'. About an hour syne I
saw Grizel come out o' the house, carrying a bundle, but she hadna gone
many yards when she turned round and waved her hand to the east window.
I couldna see wha was at it, but there maun have been somebody, for
first the crittur waved to the window and next she kissed her hand to
it, and syne she went on a bit, and syne she ran back close to the
window and nodded and flung more kisses, and back and forrit she went a
curran times as if she could hardly tear hersel' awa'. 'Wha's that
you're so chief wi'?' I speired when she came by me at last, but she
just said, 'I won't tell you,' in her dour wy, and she hasna come back
yet."

Whom could she have been saying good-by to so demonstratively, and
whither had she gone? With a curiosity that for the moment took the
place of his uneasiness, McQueen proceeded to the house, the door of
which was shut but not locked. Two glances convinced him that there was
no one here, the kitchen was as he had seen it last, except that the
long mirror had been placed on a chair close to the east window. The
doctor went to the outside of the window, and looked in, he could see
nothing but his own reflection in the mirror, and was completely
puzzled. But it was no time, he felt, for standing there scratching his
head, when there was reason to fear that the girl had gone. Gone where?
He saw his selfishness now, in a glaring light, and it fled out of him
pursued by curses.

He stopped at Aaron's door and called for Tommy, but Tommy had left the
house an hour ago. "Gone with her, the sacket; he very likely put her up
to this," the doctor muttered, and the surmise seemed justified when he
heard that Grizel and Tommy had been seen passing the Fens. That they
were running away had never struck those who saw them, and McQueen said
nothing of his suspicions, but off he went in his gig on their track and
ran them down within a mile of Tilliedrum. Grizel scurried on, thinking
it was undoubtedly her father, but in a few minutes the three were
conversing almost amicably, the doctor's first words had been so
"sweet."

Tommy exp