y the bedclothes. He
trembled so violently that the bed shook beneath them.

"Let me bide wi' ye!" he pleaded, with chattering jaws; "oh, let me bide
wi' ye! I daurna gang back to that room by mysell again."

His mother put her thin arm round him. "Yes, dear," she said; "you may
bide wi' us. Janet and me wouldna let anything harm you." She placed her
hand on his brow caressingly. His hair was damp with a cold sweat. He
reeked of alcohol.

Some one went through the Square playing a concertina. That sound of
the careless world came strangely in upon their lonely tragedy. By
contrast the cheerful, silly noise out there seemed to intensify their
darkness and isolation here. Occasional far-off shouts were heard from
roisterers going home.

Mrs. Gourlay lay staring at the darkness with intent eyes. What horror
might assail her she did not know, but she was ready to meet it for the
sake of John. "Ye brought it on yoursell," she breathed once, as if
defying an unseen accuser.

It was hours ere he slept, but at last a heavy sough told her he had
found oblivion. "He's won owre," she murmured thankfully. At times he
muttered in his sleep, and at times Janet coughed hoarsely at his ear.

"Janet, dinna hoast sae loud, woman! You'll waken your brother."

Janet was silent. Then she choked--trying to stifle another cough.

"Woman," said her mother complainingly, "that's surely an unco hoast ye
hae!"

"Ay," said Janet, "it's a gey hoast."

Next morning Postie came clattering through the paved yard in his
tackety boots, and handed in a blue envelope at the back door with a
business-like air, his ferrety eyes searching Mrs. Gourlay's face as she
took the letter from his hand. But she betrayed nothing to his
curiosity, since she knew nothing of her husband's affairs, and had no
fear, therefore, of what the letter might portend. She received the
missive with a vacant unconcern. It was addressed to "John Gourlay,
Esquire." She turned it over in a silly puzzlement, and, "Janet!" she
cried, "what am I to do wi' this?"

She shrank from opening a letter addressed to her dead tyrant, unless
she had Janet by her side. It was so many years since he had allowed her
to take an active interest in their common life (indeed he never had)
that she was as helpless as a child.

"It's to faither," said Janet. "Shall I waken John?"

"No; puir fellow, let him sleep," said his mother. "I stole in to look
at him enow, and his face was unco wan l