age
at the Lodge, the General greeted him with undisguised joy.

"Begad! Mr. Garnesk," he blurted, "I'm thundering glad to see you,
sir. It's good of you to come, sir--extremely good."

"That remains to be seen, General," said Garnesk, solemnly--"whether
my visit will do any good. I hope so, with all my heart."

"Amen to that!" said the old man, pathetically, with a heavy sigh.

"How is Miss McLeod?" asked the scientist.

"Her eyes are no better," the General replied. "She cannot see at all.
Otherwise she is in perfect health. She says she feels as well as ever
she did. I can't understand it," he finished helplessly.

A suit-case, a bag of golf-clubs, and a square deal box completed
Garnesk's outfit.

"Steady with that--here, let me take it?" he cried, as Angus was
lifting the last item ashore. "Business and pleasure," he continued,
raising the box in his arms and indicating his clubs and fishing-rods
with a jerk of the head. "I've one or two things here that may help me
in my work, and as they are very delicate instruments I would rather
carry them myself."

As we approached the house the sound of the piano greeted us in the
distance; and soon we could distinguish the strains of that most
beautiful and understanding of all burial marches, Grieg's "Aase's
Tod."

"My daughter can even welcome us with a tune," said the old man
proudly. To him all music came under the category of "tunes," with the
sole exception of "God Save the King," which was a national
institution.

Garnesk stopped and stood on the path, the deal box clasped carefully
in his arms, his head on one side, listening.

"We have the right sort of patient to deal with, anyway," he remarked,
with a sigh of relief. But to me the melancholy insistence of the
exquisite harmonies was fraught with ill-omen, and I could not
restrain the shudder of an unaccountable fear as we resumed our walk.
Later on, when I found an opportunity to ask her why she had chosen
that particular music, I was only partially relieved by her ingenuous
answer:

"Oh! just because I love it, Ronnie," she said, "and there are no
difficult intervals to play with your eyes shut. I thought it was
rather clever of me to think of it. I shall soon be able to play more
tricky things. It will cure me of looking at the notes when I can see
again."

Myra and the young specialist were introduced; and, though he chatted
gaily with her, and touched on innumerable subjects, he never once