I longed to shriek aloud. I broke into a run, and, like one
demented, gained the gate of Carlounie; but always the thing was with
me--full of joy and laudation. At the house door I paused, facing round.
I was moved to address this thing I could not see.

"Who is it that walks with me?" I cried, and my voice was high and
strained.

A voice I knew, young, clear, level, a little formal, answered out of
the darkness:--

"It is I."

It was the voice of the grey traveller whom I had seen long ago by the
burnside. I leaned back against the door and my shoulders shook against
it.

"What do you want of me?"

"I come to thank you."

"What, then, have I done?"

"You have brought the tribute money."

I did not understand, and I answered:--

"No. One soul I may have destroyed, but two I have saved to-night. For I
have slain the spectre that preyed upon them and I have set them free
from bondage."

The voice answered:--

"_Go into the house and see._"

Then again I was filled with apprehension. I turned to go in at my door,
and, as I did so, I heard footsteps treading in the direction of the
burn, and a fading voice which cried, like an echo:--

"And then come to me."

And, as the voice died, I heard the rush of sheep in the night.

* * * * *

Filled with nameless fear and a cold apprehension, I entered the house,
and, led by some cruel instinct, made my way to Kate's room. The lamp
she always had at night burned dimly on the dressing-table and cast a
grave radiance upon an empty bed.

What could this mean?

I stole to the room of Fraser, bearing the lamp with me. His chamber was
also untenanted; but, on the quilt of the bed, lay a piece of paper
written over. I took it up and read--with the sound of the burn in my
ears:--

"You stole her from me. I take back my own. To-night we stay
at the old Manse. To-morrow we shall be far away. HUGH FRASER."

The paper dropped from my hand upon the quilt. A woman's scream rang in
my ears above the roar of flames. I understood.

* * * * *

The tribute money has been paid. I go down to the burn. The grey
traveller is waiting there for me.

ROBERT HICHENS.
FREDERIC HAMILTON.

AN ECHO IN EGYPT

That lustrous land of weary music and wild dancing, of reverend tombs
and pert Arabs, that Egypt of plagues and tourists, to whose sandy bosom
Society flocks, affects her visitors in many dif