ht to tell with a Scotchman. 'We are in sore straits
now, but our case is a just one. Can you tell me who in this place is
most likely to sympathise--most likely to marry us?'

He looked at me--and surrendered at discretion. 'I should think anybody
would marry ye who saw yer pretty face and heard yer sweet voice,' he
answered. 'But, perhaps, ye'd better present yerself to Mr. Schoolcraft,
the U.P. minister at Little Kirkton. He was aye soft-hearted.'

'How far from here?' I asked.

'About two miles,' he answered.

'Can we get a trap?'

'Oh ay, there's machines always waiting at the station.'

[Illustration: WE TOLD OUR TALE.]

We interviewed a 'machine,' and drove out to Little Kirkton. There, we
told our tale in the fewest words possible to the obliging and
good-natured U.P. minister. He looked, as the station-master had said,
'soft-hearted'; but he dashed our hopes to the ground at once by telling
us candidly that unless we had had our residence in Scotland for
twenty-one days immediately preceding the marriage, it would not be
legal. 'If you were Scotch,' he added, 'I could go through the ceremony
at once, of course; and then you could apply to the sheriff to-night for
leave to register the marriage in proper form afterward: but as one of
you is English, and the other I judge'--he smiled and glanced towards
Harold--'an Indian-born subject of Her Majesty, it would be impossible
for me to do it: the ceremony would be invalid, under Lord Brougham's
Act, without previous residence.'

This was a terrible blow. I looked away appealingly. 'Harold,' I cried
in despair, 'do you think we could manage to hide ourselves safely
anywhere in Scotland for twenty-one days?'

His face fell. 'How could I escape notice? All the world is hunting for
me. And then the scandal! No matter where you stopped--however far from
me--no, Lois darling, I could never expose you to it.'

The minister glanced from one to the other of us, puzzled. 'Harold?' he
said, turning over the word on his tongue. 'Harold? That doesn't sound
like an Indian name, does it? And----' he hesitated, 'you speak
wonderful English!'

I saw the safest plan was to make a clean breast of it. He looked the
sort of man one could trust on an emergency. 'You have heard of the
Ashurst will case?' I said, blurting it out suddenly.

'I have seen something about it in the newspapers; yes. But it did not
interest me: I have not followed it.'

I told him the whole truth