tween your father and me, visits so spaced might pass
unnoticed. But I tell you honestly, Danvers Carmichael, when a man
loves a woman whom he can't have, there is nothing for it but a good
run and a far one. You'd better stay away altogether, laddie. It's the
wisest course."

He left me with no further word, and I hoped that he had come to my way
of thinking, when Satan himself took a hand in the affairs between
Nancy and himself.

CHAPTER XXII

A STRANGE MEETING

Upon the day following that on which I denied Danvers the house, a
letter came to us from a hamlet on the west coast, near Allan-lough,
saying that Janet McGillavorich was sick unto death and desired that
Nancy should come to her immediately.

It was a tedious journey, and while I sorrowed for the cause of it, I
was glad to have her away from Stair for a while, and hastened her
departure with Dickenson on the afternoon coach of the same day upon
which the letter arrived. Even with this speed it was far into the
second day before she came to the house in which Janet was lying; a
house which seemed to have straggled back from the sea and stood
lonesomely by itself in a small fenced garden having a gate-and-chain
opening to the graveled path. It was a double-storied dwelling of pink
brick, with small-paned windows and ivy creeping over it everywhere,
even upon the wooden cap of the doorway, which hung over the two broad
stone steps of the entrance.

There was no time to knock before the door was opened to Nancy by the
old woman who had been for many years Janet's maid, companion, and
housekeeper, whose eyes were red with weeping and whose whole bearing
denoted the greatest anxiety.

"She's took worse," she said. "It's thought she will not last the
night."

"Will she know me?" Nancy asked.

"Oh, aye! She's her wits about her still. She knew Mr. Danvers," the
old wife replied.

"Mr. Danvers," Nancy repeated after her. "Is Mr. Danvers here?" And at
the words Danvers himself came forward to greet her.

"Are you cold?" he inquired, in the whispering tone used when sickness
is near. "This has been a dreadful trip for you to take. You must have
some hot tea at once." And, as the old woman bustled away to prepare
it:

"Were you sent for, Danvers?" asked Nancy.

He nodded acquiescence, answering:

"The two of us are named in the will," the tears coming to his eyes as
he spoke of Janet's kindness.

Tea had scarce been brewed when the old doct