; "but my honest
advice to you is to forget all about her."

"I think," he said, testily, "with your permission, I shall ask her
myself."

"Yes, yes! Do!" And as I thought of all that would probably come to him
for his audacity I urged it still further: "Do, by all means!" I cried.

He had scarce gone from the house, and I was still laughing a bit over
the affair, when Huey, with a changed face and an excited voice, came
back to me from the kitchen.

"There's a man, hard ridden, in the doorway with a letter which he will
give to none but your lordship," said he, adding the thing which told
the reason for his pale face and hurried voice: "He's from Mauchline."

A premonition of evil came over me, and as the fellow handed me the
billet a sudden chill and shaking seized my body, so that I was forced
to put the letter upon the table to keep the writing steady enough for
me to see. It was from Janet McGillavorich, short to exasperation, and,
with no set beginning, read as follows:

"Nancy is taken ill and lies delirious at the King's Arms in
Mauchline. We have a doctor here, but I have become alarmed, for it
is now the fourth day that she has been unconscious. I think it
better to let you know just how matters stand, and to ask that ye
come down yourself immediately upon receipt of this and bring Dr.
McMurtrie with you.

"In haste,

"JANET MCGILLAVORICH."

If it be recalled that I had at this time no knowledge of the accident
to Janet's old house, could surmise no reason for Nancy's lying at a
public inn, and was in an agony of fear for her life, the wretched
state of my mind can well be understood; but I was still capable of
quick action, and within an hour Dr. McMurtrie, the end of his dinner
carried in a bag, and myself were upon the Mauchline road.

The crawling of the coach through the darkness, the insane waits for
horses, the many necessary but time-consuming details told upon my
distraught mind to such an extent that when I descended at the door of
the inn I felt an old and broken man. The memory of another ride which
I had taken was heavy upon me, my teeth chattered, the horror showing
in my face so plainly that Dame Dickenson read my thought on the
instant, and coming forward, plucked me by the sleeve.

"She's better," she said, and at the sound of the words I put my head
on the table and wept like a child.

Our presence being made known to Mrs. McGillavorich, she came