light was in the room--the cold glare of a
day he would fain have never seen! It was all in a sort of dream that
this haggard-faced man dressed, and drank a cup of tea, and got outside
into the rain. The rain, and the noise of the cabs, and the gloom of
London skies; these harsh and commonplace things were easier to bear
than the dreams of the sick brain. And then, somehow or other, he got
his way down to Aldershot, and sought out Norman Ogilvie.

"Macleod!" Ogilvie cried--startled beyond measure by his appearance.

"I--I wanted to shake hands with you, Ogilvie, before I am going," said
this hollow-eyed man, who seemed to have grown old.

Ogilvie hesitated for a second or two; and then he said, vehemently,--

"Well, Macleod, I am not a sentimental chap--but--but--hang it! it is
too bad. And again and again I have thought of writing to you, as your
friend, just within the last week or so; and then I said to myself that
tale-bearing never came to any good. But she won't darken Mrs. Ross's
door again--that I know. Mrs. Ross went straight to her the other day.
There is no nonsense about that woman. And when she got to understand
that the story was true, she let Miss White know that she considered you
to be a friend of hers, and that--well, you know how women give hints--"

"But I don't know what you mean, Ogilvie!" he cried, quite bewildered.
"Is it a thing for all the world to know? What story is it--when I knew
nothing till yesterday?"

"Well, you know now: I saw by your face a minute ago that she had told
you the truth at last," Ogilvie said. "Macleod, don't blame me. When I
heard of her being about to be married, I did not believe the story--"

Macleod sprang at him like a tiger, and caught his arm with the grip of
a vise.

"Her getting married?--to whom?"

"Why, don't you know?" Ogilvie said, with his eyes staring. "Oh yes, you
must know. I see you know! Why, the look in your face when you came into
this room--"

"Who is the man, Ogilvie?"--and there was the sudden hate of ten
thousand devils in his eyes.

"Why, it is that artist fellow--Lemuel. You don't mean to say she hasn't
told you? It is the common story! And Mrs. Ross thought it was only a
piece of nonsense--she said they were always making out those stories
about actresses--but she went to Miss White. And when Miss White could
not deny it, Mrs. Ross said there and then they had better let their
friendship drop. Macleod, I would have written to you--