ack. But Rose shopped and gormandized and enjoyed
her healthy animal life.

Then she felt tempted to wear her gold watch and chain when she dressed
to go abroad. So one morning she put it on, and went out. She had not the
slightest suspicion of the danger to which she exposed herself by wearing
it. She was not afraid of any one finding it in her possession, except
her husband. So she wore it proudly day after day.

One morning, about ten days after the departure of "Mr. Scott," the
postman left a letter for her. It was a drop-letter. She opened it and
read.

It was without date or signature, and merely contained these lines:

"Business detains me from you longer than I had expected to stay. Do not
be anxious. I will return or send very soon."

Rose was not anxious. She was enjoying herself. Now after shopping and
eating and drinking all day, she went to the theatre at night. The
theatre--one of the humblest in the city--was a new sensation to her,
and her first visit to one was so delightful that she resolved to repeat
it every evening.

"I shanna fash mysel' anent Johnnie ony mair. He'll come hame when he
gets ready," she said in her heart.

But weeks grew into months, and "Johnnie" did not come home.

Rose's five hundred pounds had sunk down to fifty pounds, and then indeed
she did begin to grow impatient for the return of her husband. Suppose
the money should give out before he came back?

One day, while she was disturbing herself by these questions, she went
out shopping as usual. When she had made her purchases she looked at her
watch, and found that it had stopped. She was too ignorant to know what
was the matter with it. She only knew that when she wound it up it would
not go.

So she asked the dealer from whom she had bought her goods to direct her
to a watchmaker.

The dealer gave her the address of a jeweller not far off.

She took her watch to "Messrs. North and Simms, Watchmakers and
Jewellers," and asked an elderly man behind the counter, who happened to
be one of the firm, if he could make her watch "gae" while she waited for
it in the shop. And she detached it from its chain and handed it to him.

Mr. North received the rich, diamond-studded, gold repeater, and
looked at the tawdry, ignorant, vain creature that presented it, with
astonishment.

Then he examined the initials set in diamonds, and a change came over
his face. He went to his desk, taking the watch with him. He drew out a
sma