gling echoes of its noise died away into silence before his summons
was answered.

At length the door opened. He caught a glimpse of a dim interior, lofty
as a church and dark with the panellings of old oak which flanked it
upon all four sides, and then gave his name to the pompous old butler,
and was taken into a little ante-room redolent of age--that mothy,
curtained odour as of a room but rarely opened and still more rarely
used--and within a moment or two Miss Duggan was standing there before
him.

"Mr. Deland! How good of you to have come so soon--how very good!" she
said warmly, extending a hand to him in greeting. "You must surely stay
and lunch with us, now that you have come all this distance. And I want
you to meet my father." Her voice dropped a tone or two. "Paula is with
him now, going over the housekeeping accounts--it is a daily matter upon
which he is very insistent. Ross is in the laboratory, tinkering over
something to do with the lights, but he'll be out in a minute. I told
him I had met you on the train, and that we had got into conversation
and found we were congenial friends through Ailsa Lorne. You know her
well, don't you, Mr. Deland?"

He smiled, and for a moment his eyes softened.

"Rather well, I fancy, as she has consented some day to throw in her lot
with me and marry me," he returned in a happy, low-pitched voice. "And
that is why any friend of hers, you know, must be a friend of mine as
well. I'd like very much to have a look at the Castle, if I might be so
permitted. Architecture interests me immensely. It's a hobby of mine.
And this is surely one of the grandest old stately homes that Scotland
possesses!"

"Isn't it?--isn't it? I can see you have the love of Home and Race in
you, too, Mr. Deland, just as I have it in me," she responded, with a
little happy sigh. "And if only I had not this other trouble which hangs
over me like the sword of Damocles itself, life would be a very happy
thing, indeed. For when one loves and is loved----" Her voice trailed
off into silence, and she stood a moment looking out of the window, eyes
alight, face aglow.

"Oho!" thought Cleek, with upflung brows. "So Love finds its way even
into these Highland fastnesses. First James Tavish and Lady Paula's
companion (if what Mr. Fairnish said was true), and now Miss Duggan
herself."

"Who is the happy man?" he said smilingly, as she sighed and turned
toward him.

"How did you know there was one?"

"Ho