mble stumbled into one almost as great as that he had been
instructed to avoid. He had gone through the wood of Strongara and come
suddenly upon the cavalcade that bore the doomed man to the scene of his
execution thirty or forty miles away.

The wretch had been bound upon a horse--a tall, middle-aged man in
coarse home-spun clothing, his eye defiant, but his countenance white
with the anxieties of his situation. He was surrounded by a troop of
sabres; the horses' hoofs made a great clatter upon the hard road, and
Count Victor, walking abstractedly along the river-bank, came on them
before he was aware of their proximity. As he stood to let them pass he
was touched inexpressibly by the glance the convict gave him, so charged
was it with question, hope, dread, and the appetite for some human
sympathy. He had seen that look before in men condemned--once in front
of his own rapier,--and with the utmost feeling for the unhappy wretch
he stood, when the cavalcade had gone, looking after it and conjuring
in his fancy the last terrible scene whereof that creature would be the
central figure. Thus was he standing when another horseman came upon
him suddenly, following wide in the rear of the troops--a civilian who
shared the surprise of the unexpected meeting. He had no sooner gazed
upon Count Victor than he drew up his horse confusedly and seemed to
hesitate between proceeding or retreat. Count Victor passed with a
courteous salute no less formally returned. He was struck singularly by
some sense of familiarity. He did not know the horseman who so strangely
scrutinised him as he passed, but yet the face was one not altogether
new to him. It was a face scarce friendly, too, and for his life the
Frenchman could not think of any reason for aversion.

He could no more readily have accounted for the action of the horseman
had he known that he had ridden behind the soldiers but a few hundred
yards after meeting with Count Victor when he turned off at one of
the hunting-roads with which the ducal grounds abounded, and galloped
furiously back towards the castle of Argyll. Nothing checked him till he
reached the entrance, where he flung the reins to a servant and dashed
into the turret-room where the Duke sat writing.

"Ah, Sim!" said his Grace, airily, yet with an accent of apprehension,
"you have come back sooner than I looked for: nothing wrong with the
little excursion, I hope?"

MacTaggart leaned with both hands upon the table