the witnesses giving evidence--oral and written--before the
Commissioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of
Scotland from the Christian and the civilized point of view, and
entirely agree with the authoritative conclusion already
cited--that such marriages ought to be abolished.

W. C.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

DONE!

ARNOLD was a little surprised by the curt manner in which Geoffrey
answered him.

"Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant?" he asked.

"Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say."

"No difficulty about the marriage?"

"None."

"No fear of Blanche--"

"She won't ask you to go to Craig Fernie--I'll answer for that!" He said
the words with a strong emphasis on them, took his brother's letter from
the table, snatched up his hat, and went out.

His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by them quickly
without answering, without so much as a glance at them over his
shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he stopped and took out his pipe;
then suddenly changed his mind, and turned back again by another path.
There was no certainty, at that hour of the day, of his being left alone
in the rose-garden. He had a fierce and hungry longing to be by himself;
he felt as if he could have been the death of any body who came and
spoke to him at that moment. With his head down and his brows knit
heavily, he followed the path to see what it ended in. It ended in a
wicket-gate which led into a kitchen-garden. Here he was well out of
the way of interruption: there was nothing to attract visitors in the
kitchen-garden. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the middle of the
inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of turf running round
it. After first looking about him, he seated himself and lit his pipe.

"I wish it was done!" he said.

He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking. Before long
the restlessness that had got possession of him forced him to his feet
again. He rose, and paced round and round the strip of greensward under
the walnut-tree, like a wild beast in a cage.

What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner man? Now that he
had committed himself to the betrayal of the friend who had trusted and
served him, was he torn by remorse?

He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your eye is passing
over this sentence. He was simply in a raging fever of impatience to see
himself safely la n