rible beast will see that he doesn't!"

Miss Walkingshaw started nervously.

"You're not meaning the nurse?"

"I mean that--ugh!--that Andrew!"

A bright pink spot appeared in each of Miss Walkingshaw's cheeks. But
the widow was too agitated to observe either them or the horrified stare
with which she greeted this outburst.

"I believe he would _kill_ him to spite me!"

"Madge!" said the exemplary spinster in a voice which for the first time
reminded her of Heriot's.

Mrs. Dunbar collected herself. Doubtless she realized the injustice she
was doing that excellent man.

"I am sorry, Mary," she said gently. "I don't know what I'm saying. I
admire Andrew as much as any one. I didn't mean it. It was only that I
felt I _had_ to blame some one for this terrible sorrow."

Her friend continued to look at her with decidedly diminished warmth.

"Our religion forbids us--" she began austerely; but the sympathetic
widow hurriedly anticipated her.

"I know, I know, dear--so it does. How true, Mary; oh, how true! How
sweet of you to remind me."

She turned her large black eyes, glistening pathetically, full upon her
friend; but for some reason Mary continued to regard her with a new and
curious expression. A trace of suspicion seemed to be among its
ingredients.

Meanwhile her slandered nephew was in the library with his two elder
sisters. The gas was now lit and the storm curtained out. Mrs. Ramornie
and Andrew talked in decorously lowered voices; Mrs. Donaldson more
loudly, and almost more airily, as became her dashing appearance and
smart reputation. Yet she too had a nice sense of the solemnity of the
occasion, and they forgave her elevated voice, since they knew several
people of rank who talked like that.

"An irretrievable loss," Andrew was saying; "an irretrievable loss."

They agreed with him as heartily as people could who were feeling so
depressed.

"A public loss," he added; and again they concurred.

"That will have to be taken into consideration in making the
arrangements," he went on.

They looked graver than ever.

"Something like Sir James Maitland's?" suggested Mrs. Donaldson.

"Something of the sort," said he.

"I only hope it will not be a wet day," said Mrs. Ramornie. "George
caught lumbago at his last funeral--Lord Pitcullo's, you know."

George was the laird of Pettigrew. Nowadays his wife saw that he mixed
with none but the most desirable company, whether it were alive or
dead.