nd was concerned, and all pointed to
peace.

"You didna speak the day, Sinclair, and I fairly thocht you wad hae been
into the fecht," said one delegate to Robert, as the train moved away
from the station.

"No, I wasna feelin' up to the mark," he returned, in a tone that
hinted that he did not want to be troubled, and he sat back in his
corner in silence. In the gray quick gloaming the moors and the hills,
viewed from the train, seemed to him a country without hope. There was
sadness in it, and pain, and the gray wintry sky brooded of sorrows to
come.

Occasionally a few sheep would start away from where they had been
grazing close to the railway, startled by the noise of the train. Thin
wisps of gray ragged clouds hung low, as if softly descending upon the
hills, in fateful sinister storms, and a fiery flash of yellow left a
strip of anger on the western horizon, where the sun had gone down a
short time ago.

Gray mists and grayer moors, with occasionally a solitary tree standing
out in the distance, as if to accentuate the loneliness and the sorrow
of the world in their ragged branches, which seemed ready to pierce the
sky in defiance of the anger of the, as yet, unleashed storm.

On rushed the train, and through the mists there kept coming before his
eyes the white lonely figure, moaning in fatal grief--grief inexorable
and unrelenting, while the flying wheels groaned and sobbed and clicked,
with the regular beat of a breaking heart, as if they were beating out
the sorrows of the world, and over all they sang the dirge of the broken
life of a maid. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it
a'!"

CHAPTER XXII

MYSIE'S RETURN

When Mrs. Ramsay returned she found Mysie in a fainting condition,
thoroughly exhausted, and on the point of collapse. Mrs. Ramsay saw, by
her red swollen eyes, that she had been weeping. With the help of her
daughter the kind woman, who had done so much for Mysie during the past
few months, got her to the street, and procuring a cab, got her back to
the house, much alarmed by the patient's condition.

All night Mysie tossed and raved in a high fever and delirium, while
Mrs. Ramsay sat by her bedside, trying to soothe and quieten the
stricken girl. As she seemed to get no better the older woman grew more
alarmed.

"Oh, my puir faither!" moaned the girl. "Oh, mither, I am vexed at what
has happened. Oh, dear, I wonder what I'll do!"

"There now, dearie!" said Mr