r.

"I ate lunch with Agnes and during it I told her to transfer all her
money not required for travelling expenses to the Bank of New York;
and I promised to go at once and secure a passage for herself and
maid--for seeing that the _Atlantic_ would leave her dock for New York
about the noon hour of the next day, haste was necessary. I did not
wish to go to Liverpool because of my two engagements, but Agnes was
so insistent on my presence I could not refuse her. Well, perhaps I
was wrong to yield to her entreaties."

"No, hardly," said Ragnor. "Going on board a big steamer at Liverpool
must be a muddling business--not fit for two simple women like Agnes
Henderson and her maid."

"I don't remember thinking of that but I could hear my friend Willie
telling me, 'See her safe on board, Ian. Don't leave her till she is
in the captain's care. Do this for me, Ian!' And I did it for both
Agnes' and Willie's sake but mainly for Willie's, for I love him. He
is my right-hand friend, always. Perhaps I did wrong."

"It is a pity there was any mystification about it. Was it necessary
for Agnes Henderson to disguise herself?"

"Perhaps not, but it prevented trouble and disappointment. Her father
supposed her to be at her uncle's home. On Saturday afternoon he went
to see her and found she had not been there at all. He returned to
Edinburgh and could get no trace of her, nor was she located until I
returned and informed him that she was on the _Atlantic_."

There was a few moments of silence and then Ian said, "Have I done
anything unpardonable? Surely you will not let that jealous, envious
letter stand between Thora and myself?"

Then Ragnor answered, "Tonight I will say neither this nor that on the
matter. I will sleep over the subject and take counsel of One wiser
than myself. Thou had better do likewise. Many things are to
consider."

And Ian went away without a word. There was anger in his heart, and as
he sat gloomily in his dimly lit room and felt the damp chill of the
midnight, he told himself that he had been hardly judged. "I have done
nothing wrong," he whispered passionately. "Old McLeod collected his
own rents and looked after his own property and no one thought he did
wrong. He was an elder in one of the largest Edinburgh kirks and the
favourite chairman in missionary meetings, but because I did not go to
kirk, what was business in him was sin in me.

"As to the gambling houses, I had nothing to do with them bu