ave nobody saw him for hours. Till
sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the Wizard's Chamber,
the room in which he was born. Part of the time he occupied in writing
to Mr. Graham.

As the sun's orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm
turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining shore on which he
had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill. From the other side
Clementina but a moment later ascended also. On the top they met in the
red light of the sunset. They clasped each other's hand, and stood for a
moment in silence.

"Ah, my lord," said the lady, "how shall I thank you that you kept your
secret from me? But my heart is sore to lose my fisherman."

"My lady," returned Malcolm, "you have not lost your fisherman: you have
only found your groom."

And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night followed,
and the world of sea and land and wind and vapor was around them, and
the universe of stars and spaces over and under them, and eternity
within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the other, and God
filling all--nay, nay, God's heart containing, infolding, cherishing
all, saving all, from height to height of intensest being, by the bliss
of that love whose absolute devotion could utter itself only in death.

CHAPTER LXXI.

THE ASSEMBLY.

That same evening Duncan in full dress, claymore and dirk at his sides
and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through the streets
of the upper, then through the closes of the lower, town, followed by
the bellman, who had been appointed crier upon his disappearance. At the
proper stations Duncan blew a rousing pibroch, after which the bellman,
who, for the dignity of his calling, insisted on a prelude of three
strokes of his clapper, proclaimed aloud that Malcolm, marquis of
Lossie, desired the presence of each and every of his tenants in the
royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in the town-hall of the
same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next following. The
proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three times, and they
passed to the next station. When they had gone through the Seaton they
entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea-gate, and were driven to
Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other villages on the coast
belonging to the marquis, making at each in like manner the same
announcement.

Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction and pleasure. There
were few