d that night there were wild and glad desires and
resolves in his brain that might otherwise have kept him awake but for
the fatigue he had lately endured. He slept, and he dreamed; and the
figure that he saw in his dreams--though she was distant, somehow--had a
look of tenderness in her eyes, and she held a red rose in her hand.

CHAPTER XXII.

DECLARATION.

November though it was, next morning broke brilliantly over London.
There was a fresh west wind blowing; there was a clear sunshine filling
the thoroughfares; if one were on the lookout for picturesqueness even
in Bury Street, was there not a fine touch of color where the softly red
chimney-pots rose far away into the blue? It was not possible to have
always around one the splendor of the northern sea.

And Macleod would not listen to a word his friend had to say concerning
the important business that had brought them both to London.

"To-night, man--to-night--we will arrange it all to-night," he would
say, and there was a nervous excitement about his manner for which the
major could not at all account.

"Sha'n't I see you till the evening, then?" he asked.

"No," Macleod said, looking anxiously out of the window, as if he feared
some thunder-storm would suddenly shut out the clear light of this
beautiful morning. "I don't know--perhaps I may be back before--but at
any rate we meet at seven. You will remember--seven?"

"Indeed I am not likely to forget it," his companion said, for he had
been told about five-and-thirty times.

It was about eleven o'clock when Macleod left the house. There was a
grateful freshness about the morning even here in the middle of London.
People looked cheerful; Piccadilly was thronged with idlers come out to
enjoy the sunshine; there was still a leaf or two fluttering on the
trees in the square. Why should this man go eagerly tearing away
northward in a hansom--with an anxious and absorbed look on his
face--when everybody seemed inclined to saunter leisurely along,
breathing the sweet wind, and feeling the sunlight on their cheek?

It was scarcely half-past eleven when Macleod got out of the hansom, and
opened a small gate, and walked up to the door of a certain house. He
was afraid she had already gone. He was afraid she might resent his
calling at so unusual an hour. He was afraid--of a thousand things. And
when at last the trim maid-servant told him that Miss White was within,
and asked him to step into the drawing-