piper strut upon the gravelled walk beside the bridgegate, we
saw Argile himself come out to meet the traveller.

"MacCailein! MacCailein! Ah the dear heart!" cried all our people,
touched by this rare and genteel courtesy.

The Marquis and his clansman touched hands, lingered together a little,
and the rider passed on his way with the piper's invitation the last
sound in his ears. He rode past Kilmalieu of the tombs, with his bonnet
off for all the dead that are so numerous there, so patient, waiting for
the final trump. He rode past Boshang Gate, portal to my native glen
of chanting birds and melodious waters and merry people. He rode past
Gearron hamlet, where the folk waved farewells; then over the river
before him was the bend that is ever the beginning of home-sickness for
all that go abroad for fortune.

I turned to the girl beside me, and "Sweetheart," said I softly,
"there's an elder brother lost. It is man's greed, I know; but rich
though I am in this new heart of yours, I must be grudging the comrade
gone."

"Gone!" said she, with scarcely a glance after the departing figure.
"Better gone than here a perpetual sinner, deaf to the cry of justice
and of nature."

"Good God!" I cried, "are you still in that delusion?" and I hinted at
the truth.

She saw the story at a flash; she paled to the very lips, and turned
and strained her vision after that figure slowly passing round the woody
point; she relinquished no moment of her gaze till the path bent and hid
John Splendid from her eager view.

THE END.

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