t through
his brain like spasms of fire--these were killing this man. His face
grew haggard and gray; his eyes morose and hopeless; he shunned people
as if he feared their scrutiny; he brooded over the past in a silence he
did not wish to have broken by any human voice. This was no longer
Macleod of Dare. It was the wreck of a man--drifting no one knew
whither.

And in those dark and morbid reveries there was no longer any
bewilderment. He saw clearly how he had been tricked and played with. He
understood now the coldness she had shown on coming to Dare; her desire
to get away again; her impatience with his appeals; her anxiety that
communication between them should be solely by letter. "Yes, yes," he
would say to himself--and sometimes he would laugh aloud in the solitude
of the hills, "she was prudent. She was a woman of the world, as Stuart
used to say. She would not quite throw me off--she would not be quite
frank with me--until she had made sure of the other. And in her trouble
of doubt, when she was trying to be better than herself, and anxious to
have guidance, _that_ was the guide she turned to--the woman-man, the
dabbler in paint-boxes, the critic of carpets and wall-papers!"

Sometimes he grew to hate her. She had destroyed the world for him. She
had destroyed his faith in the honesty and honor of womanhood. She had
played with him as with a toy--a fancy of the brain--and thrown him
aside when something new was presented to her. And when a man is stung
by a white adder, does he not turn and stamp with his heel? Is he not
bound to crush the creature out of existence, to keep God's earth and
the free sunlight sweet and pure?

But then--but then--the beauty of her! In dreams he heard her low, sweet
laugh again; he saw the beautiful brown hair; he surrendered to the
irresistible witchery of the clear and lovely eyes. What would not a man
give for one last, wild kiss of the laughing and half-parted lips? His
life? And if that life happened to be a mere broken and useless thing--a
hateful thing--would he not gladly and proudly fling it away? One long,
lingering, despairing kiss, and then a deep draught of Death's black
wine!

One day he was riding down to the fishing-station, when he met John
MacIntyre, the postman, who handed him a letter, and passed on.
Macleod opened this letter with some trepidation, for it was from
London; but it was in Norman Ogilvie's handwriting.

"DEAR MACLEOD,--I thought you might