"If you had," said Goatley, "I would have been back there in a very few days."

So patient Gil, filing grimly over his guns, looked up from the vice, wiped his eyes with his big black hands, and said, "Gude guide us!" for Austin Elliot was standing in front of him, and bidding him good-morrow. And that same night, Gil took the two apprentices to a Scotch stores he knew of; and, at his own expense, made them and himself also, so very drunk on whiskey and water, that the outraged majesty of the law, required that they should be all three locked up at Bow Street, until they had purged themselves of their contempt. They were not back before eleven the next morning. But Mr. Macpherson was not angry; he only winked. And Mrs. Macpherson said, “He's no awake yet. It does my heart good, Gil Macdonald, ye daft devil, to think that he is back in his ain house again after a'. If all the world were like you and he and our gude man, Gil, why it would be no muckle the waur, hey?"

CHAPTER XV,

WE must leave Austin here for a short time; and this is almost the first time in this tale, in which we have left him. But we must leave him, and see how matters were going on at Ems. If sternest fate did not say "no," we would have preferred to make Ems the place in which some pleasant genial story got itself wound up; in which every angle in one's tale was rounded off; in whose mountain meadows happy lovers met, and parted no more. But that cannot be. With all its wonderful beauty, it is a wicked little place. Under the auspices of the Duke of Nassau, the play runs higher than at most places on the continent; there are many men who curse the day on which they first saw its lovely winding valleys, and hanging sheets of woodland.

The morning of the duel, old James went off into

town on some errand or another. Towards two o'clock he heard the terrible news and brought it home. He looked so wild and scared, that his old enemies, the maids, grew frightened too. They forbore to tease him, or to laugh at him; but besought him, in eager whispers, to tell them what was the matter. At last he did so, and then they stood all silent and terrified. "Who is to break it to her?" asked one at last.

No one knew; it was a business no one would undertake. Even the very housekeeper, who had nursed Eleanor when a baby, shrank from the task. Lord Charles killed, and Mr. Austin in prison. God spare her from telling such news. At last, the youngest and most heedless of the servant girls, suggested that they should send for Lord Edward.

It was a good idea, but James would not agree to act on it. He said she must be told at once, lest the news should come to her any other way; and, after a long pause, he undertook to go and tell her himself.

He went up to the drawing-room, and found Eleanor alone there. She saw that disaster was written in his face; and she prayed him, for old love's sake, to be quick, and strike his blow. He did so; he told her

all, as quietly as he could; and then she fell back in her chair speechless. She never said one word, good or bad. She tried to undo the handkerchief round her throat, but could not; then she feebly clutched her hair with her hands, until one long loop of it fell down across her face; and then she clasped her hands in her lap in her old patient attitude, and sat pale and still.

Old James was kneeling at her feet, and praying her to speak to him; when he heard the door locked behind him. He started up, and Aunt Maria was standing between him and the door. Old James, valiant old soul as he was, grew frightened. She had got on her dressing-gown only, her hair was all tumbled and wild, her great coarse throat was bare, and her big black eyebrows were nearly hiding her cruel little eyes; she looked redder, angrier, madder, than ever. He saw that she had heard every word; he saw that she had locked the door behind her, and was standing silently scowling at them; and for one moment he trembled.

But only for one instant. His darling Miss Eleanor was there, and his courage returned; he faced her, furiously.

"Give me that key, you old Atrophy!" he said,