"DEAR HUGH,--Make the man who brings you this letter marry me.
If you don't, I will kill myself; for I am ruined. KATE."

I looked up at Hugh Fraser over the letter which my hand still
mechanically held near my eyes. I wonder how long the silence through
which we stared lasted.

* * * * *

A month later I was married to Kate Walters!

IV

THE SOUL OF HUGH FRASER

It may seem strange that my influence upon the soul of Hugh Fraser
should follow upon such a situation as I have just described; but
everything connected with my life, since the day when I met the grey boy
by the burn, has been utterly strange, utterly abnormal. My treachery,
one would have thought, must have led Fraser to hate me. I had wrecked
his happiness. I had done him the deepest injury one man can do to
another, and at first he hated me. When he had wrung from me a promise
to marry Kate, he left me, and I did not see him again until after the
wedding. But then, it seemed, he could not keep away from her. For he
forgave us the wrong we had done him; and, after a while, wrote a
friendly letter in which he suggested that we should all forget the
past.

"Why should I not see you sometimes?" he concluded. "I only wish you
both good, there is no longer any evil in my heart."

Poor boy! It was to be, I suppose. The Tsar of the empire of my soul set
forth his edict, and one winter day carriage wheels ground harshly upon
the gravel sweep, and Hugh Fraser was my guest at Carlounie. I welcomed
him upon the very spot where those light footsteps paused that black
night of Doctor Wedderburn's dreary end. And the faint sound of the burn
mingled with our voices in greeting and reply.

The boy was changed. He had aged, grown grave, heavier in movement,
fiercer in observation, less ready in speech. But his manner was
friendly even to me, and it was plain to see that Kate still had his
heart. They met quietly enough, but a flush ran from his cheek to hers
as they touched hands. Their voices quivered when they spoke a
commonplace of pleasure at the encounter. So the wheels of Fate began
slowly to turn on this winter's day.

I must tell you that my fortunes had greatly changed before Hugh Fraser
came to Carlounie. I was grown rich. My investments, my speculations had
prospered almost miraculously. The mine I have spoken of was proving a
gold mine to me. All worldly things went well with me--all worldly
things, yes.

No