, honestly, "is
always a puzzle to me. How a fellow can be such an ass as to blow his
brains out when his wife runs away from him beats my comprehension
altogether. Now what I would do would be this: I would thank goodness I
was rid of such a piece of baggage; I would get all the good-fellows I
know, and give them a rattling fine dinner; and I would drink a bumper
to her health and another bumper to her never coming back."

"And I would send you our Donald, and he would play, 'Cha till mi
tuilich' for you," Macleod said.

"But as for blowing my brains out! Well," the major added, with a
philosophic air, "when a man is mad he cares neither for his own life
nor for anybody else's. Look at those cases you continually see in the
papers: a young man is in love with a young woman; they quarrel, or she
prefers some one else; what does he do but lay hold of her some evening
and cut her throat--to show his great love for her--and then he coolly
gives himself up to the police, and says he is quite content to be
hanged."

"Stuart," said Macleod, laughing, "I don't like this talk about hanging.
You said a minute or two ago that I was mad."

"More or less," observed the major, with absolute gravity; "as the
lawyer said when he mentioned the Fifteen-acres park at Dublin."

"Well, let us get into a hansom," Macleod said. "When I am hanged you
will ask them to write over my tombstone that I never kept anybody
waiting for either luncheon or dinner."

The trim maid-servant who opened the door greeted Macleod with a
pleasant smile; she was a sharp wench, and had discovered that lovers
have lavish hands. She showed the two visitors into the drawing-room;
Macleod silent, and listening intently; the one-eyed major observing
everything, and perhaps curious to know whether the house of an actress
differed from that of anybody else. He very speedily came to the
conclusion that, in his small experience, he had never seen any house of
its size so tastefully decorated and accurately managed as this simple
home.

"But what's this!" he cried, going to the mantelpiece and taking down a
drawing that was somewhat ostentatiously placed there. "Well! If this is
English hospitality! By Jove! an insult to me, and my father, and my
father's clan, that blood alone will wipe out. 'The Astonishment of
Sandy MacAlister Mhor on beholding a Glimpse of Sunlight,' Look!"

He showed the rude drawing to Macleod--a sketch of a wild Highlander,
with his hair