hing sent from Sheffield the day before yesterday!"

"You ought to be very pleased, pappy, you got it at all," said Gertrude
White; but she was looking elsewhere, and rather absently too.

"And so you have buried it to restore the tone?"

"I have," said the old gentleman, marching off with the shovel to a sort
of out house.

Macleod speedily took his leave.

"Saturday next at noon," said he to her, with no timidity in his voice.

"Yes," said she, more gently, and with downcast eyes.

He walked away from the house--he knew not whither. He saw nothing
around him. He walked hard, sometimes talking to himself. In the
afternoon he found himself in a village in Berkshire, close by which,
fortunately, there was a railway station; and he had just time to get
back to keep his appointment with Major Stuart.

They sat down to dinner.

"Come, now, Macleod, tell me where you have been all day," said the
rosy-faced soldier, carefully tucking his napkin under his chin.

Macleod burst out laughing.

"Another day--another day, Stuart, I will tell you all about it. It is
the most ridiculous story you ever heard in your life!"

It was a strange sort of laughing, for there were tears in the younger
man's eyes. But Major Stuart was too busy to notice; and presently they
began to talk about the real and serious object of their expedition to
London.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A RED ROSE.

From nervous and unreasoning dread to overweening and extravagant
confidence there was but a single bound. After the timid confession she
had made, how could he have any further fear? He knew now the answer she
must certainly give him. What but the one word "_yes_"--musical as the
sound of summer seas--could fitly close and atone for all that long
period of doubt and despair? And would she murmur it with the low, sweet
voice, or only look it with the clear and lambent eyes? Once uttered,
anyhow, surely the glad message would instantly wing its flight away to
the far North; and Colonsay would hear; and the green shores of Ulva
would laugh; and through all the wild dashing and roaring of the seas
there would be a soft ringing as of wedding-bells. The Gometra men will
have a good glass that night; and who will take the news to distant
Fladda and rouse the lonely Dutchman from his winter sleep? There is a
bride coming to Castle Dare!

When Norman Ogilvie had even mentioned marriage, Macleod had merely
shaken his head and turned away. There was