was good and
true. Had he not lived at Court, had he not known the great ladies,
had not they tried to seduce him, and flung themselves at his
head? Was not Jean a woman like the rest, and why should his wife be
faithful when every other woman of rank was an adulteress! This,
then, was the end of it all, and he had suffered the last stroke of
treachery, and the last stain of dishonor. How he had been befooled
and bewitched; what an actress she had been, with a manner that
would have deceived the wisest! What a stupid, blundering fool he
had been! There are times, the black straits of life, when a man
must either pray or curse. If he be a saint he will pray, but Dundee
was not a saint, so he rose from his bed, and sweeping away the evil
shapes from before him with his right arm, and then with his left,
as one makes his road through high-standing corn that closes in behind
him, he raged from side to side of the room in which the day was
faintly breaking, while unaccustomed oaths poured from his mouth.
One thing only remained for him, and at the thought peace began to
come. He had planned weeks ago to visit Dundee again and give the
chance to Livingstone's dragoons to join him, for he had reason to
believe that they were not unalterably loyal. He was on his way to
Dundee now, and to-morrow he would be there, but he cared little what
the dragoons would do; he had other folk to deal with. If he found
he had been betrayed at home, and by her who had lain on his breast,
and by a man whom he had counted his friend, they should know the
vengeance of the Grahams. "Both of them--both of them to hell, and
then my work is done and I shall go to see them!"

It was characteristic of the man that, though he had no assistance
from Grimond in the morning--for Jock dared not go near him--Dundee
appeared in perfect order, even more carefully dressed than usual; but
as he rode from the door of Glamis Castle through the beautiful domain
of park and wood, Grimond was aghast at his pinched and drawn face and
the gleam in his eye. "May the Lord hae mercy, but I doot sairly that
he is aff his head, and that there will be wild work at Dudhope." And
while Grimond had all the imperturbable self-satisfaction and unshaken
dourness of the Lowland Scot, and never on any occasion acknowledged
that he could be wrong or changed his way, he almost wished that he
had left this affair alone and had not meddled between his master and
his master's wife. It wa