een obliged to ask him for money at all. He sat down and wrote
out a check for the amount. Then he enclosed it with these words:

"SON COLIN CRAWFORD: I send you what you desire. I am glad your
prospects are sae laudable; maybe it may enter your heart, some day,
to consider it laudable to keep the Fifth Command. Your sister is
dead. Life is lonely, but I thole it. I want nae explanations.

"Your father,

"ALEX. CRAWFORD."

"What's the address, Tallisker?"

"Regent's Place, London."

The answer arrived in due time. It was as proper as a letter could be.
Colin said he was just leaving for America, but did not expect to be
more than six months there. But he never said a word about coming to
Crawford. Tallisker was downright angry at the young man. It was true
his father had told him he did not wish to see him again, but that had
been said under a keen sense of family wrong and of bitter
disappointment. Colin ought to have taken his father's ready response
to his request as an overture of reconciliation. For a moment he was
provoked with both of them.

"You are a dour lot, you Crawfords; ane o' you is prouder than the
ither."

"The Crawfords are as God made them, dominie."

"And some o' them a little warse."

Yet, after all, it was Colin Tallisker was really angry at. For the
present he had to let his anger lie by. Colin had gone, and given him
no address in America.

"He is feared I will be telling him his duty, and when he comes back
that is what I shall do, if I go to London to mak him hear me."

For a moment the laird looked hopefully into the dominie's face, but
the hope was yet so far off he could not grasp it. Yet, in a dim,
unacknowledged way it influenced him. He returned to his money-making
with renewed vigor. It was evident he had let the hope of Colin's
return steal into his heart. And the giving of that L4,000 Tallisker
considered almost a sign of grace. It had not been given from any
particularly noble motive; but any motive, not sinful, roused in
opposition to simple avarice, was a gain. He was quite determined now
to find Colin as soon as he returned from America.

In rather less than six months there were a few lines from Colin,
saying that the money sent had been applied to the proper purpose, and
had nobly fulfilled it. The laird had said he wanted no explanations,
and Colin gave him none.

Tallisker read the letter with a half smile.

"He is just the maist contrary, conceited young ma