ollowed
me with a letter which had been long awaiting my return.

I took it in a dream. "This has been a devil of a business," said I.

"Don't think hard of Mamie," he pleaded. "It's the way she's made; it's
her high-toned loyalty. And of course I know it's all right. I know your
sterling character; but you didn't, somehow, make out to give us the
thing straight, Loudon. Anybody might have--I mean it--I mean----"

"Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim," said I. "She's a gallant little
woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her splendid. My story was as
fishy as the devil. I'll never think the less of either her or you."

"It'll blow over; it must blow over," said he.

"It never can," I returned, sighing: "and don't you try to make it!
Don't name me, unless it's with an oath. And get home to her right
away. Good-bye, my best of friends. Good-bye, and God bless you. We
shall never meet again."

"O, Loudon, that we should live to say such words!" he cried.

I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit suicide,
or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-conscious, walking
apparently on air in the light-headedness of grief. I had money in my
pocket, whether mine or my creditors' I had no means of guessing; and,
the "Poodle Dog" lying in my path, I went mechanically in and took a
table. A waiter attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for
presently I found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness,
beginning dinner. On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and the
Edinburgh postmark. A bowl of bouillon and a glass of wine awakened in
one corner of my brain (where all the rest was in mourning, the blinds
down as for a funeral) a faint stir of curiosity; and while I waited the
next course, wondering the while what I had ordered, I opened and began
to read the epoch-making document:

"DEAR SIR,--I am charged with the melancholy duty of announcing to
you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr. Alexander Loudon, on
the 17th ult. On Sunday, the 13th, he went to church as usual in the
forenoon, and stopped on his way home, at the corner of Princes
Street, in one of our seasonable east winds, to talk with an old
friend. The same evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the
first, Dr. M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman
appeared to have no illusion as to his own state. He