hasn't a chap's temptations.

"Good-bye, old girl. I shall see you soon, if I don't fancy on board the 'Jumna' that the easiest way out would be to drop quietly over the rail some night when nobody's looking.--Your affectionate, but down-on-his-luck,

"MALCOLM."

Just for the space of five minutes or so the world was a dark place to Isla Mackinnon. She had no mother, and for the last ten years she had borne a double burden--had experienced both a mother's anxiety and a sister's shame for the ne'er-do-weel. The history of Malcolm Mackinnon's misdeeds in the glen, and out of it, would fill a book. But such a book would not be worth the writing. Through him evil had fallen on an old and honourable house--its revenues had been scattered, its very existence threatened.

While Malcolm was stationed at home, at Colchester, at Sheerness, and at the Curragh, complaints had been many and his scrapes innumerable, and Isla had welcomed with abundant relief the news that his regiment was ordered to India. That was three years ago. And now the final blow had fallen. He had been dismissed the army, in itself a disgrace so overwhelming that Isla knew there must be some scandalous story behind.

Presently he would be home to loaf about in idleness, to harry the people, to wring her heart and the heart of the old man, in so far as he was able to comprehend. And, with it all, he would smile his wicked and alluring smile and get off scot-free. This was the first time condign punishment had been meted out to him, and he took it lightly and merely remarked that it was injustice. Everything was injustice that sought in any way to hamper the wayward impulses of Malcolm Mackinnon. It had been so from his youth up.

But what was to be done? That half-hour of anguish did its work on the face of Isla Mackinnon. It ploughed a few more lines on it and took away the last remnant of its girlish curve. She had a woman's work in front of her, and a man's combined, for the intellect of the old General was clouded now, and his bodily health frail. There was no one to act for Achree save her alone.

And she would act. Presently she threw her head up, and the pride of her race crept back to sustain her, and her eye even flashed with the swift strength of her new resolve.

The dogs, hovering wistfully about her feet, asking mutely why she lingered and cheated them out of their scamper down the hill, reminded her of the passage of time. She pulled herself together, thrust the letter into her bosom, and, grasping her stick, walked on with feet which faltered only at the first step.

She reached the village, gave her order at the little shop, inquired for a child who was sick in the house above, passed the time of day with all whom she met, and even listened patiently to a tinker's tale, told with the persuasive guile of her tribe. She felt herself a dual person that day. Never had the brain of the inner self been so active. Her swift planning was so intense as to make her head ache.

All her small commissions done, she breasted the hill again and so came to the gate of Darrach farm-house, where Elspeth Maclure was looking out for her.

Now it must be explained that Elspeth had been a nurse-girl at Achree and had had Isla in her absolute care for the first seven years of her life. Then she had married honest Donald Maclure and had flitted to the house of Darrach, whose chief recommendation, in her eyes, was that it stood straight on the main road and that, from its windows, she could see all who passed to and fro between the village and the old Castle.

The private life of its inmates was not hid from Elspeth. She, too, remembered and took anxious note of the Indian mail-day. As she came down the path, wiping the flour of her baking from her hands on the snow-white of her apron, her deep, dark eyes scanned the beloved face of her darling with all a mother's solicitude.

Elspeth was now considerably over forty--a comely, motherly woman with a clear, rosy face and abundant black hair, a model wife and mother, and the staunchest friend of Isla Mackinnon's whole life.

When she opened the little gate, she saw that Isla could not speak, and that her face was wan and dark under the eyes. She took her by the two hands and drew her towards the door of the house.

"It is pad news, whatefer, my lamb. I knew it wass comin' at twelve o'clock last night when that thrawn prute of a cock wouldna stop his crawin'. I wass for Donald gettin' up to thraw hiss ill neck, only he wouldna."

Isla did not speak, and, quite suddenly, when they got within the house, where the baby, in a queer little cage of Donald's making, was crowing in the middle of the floor, she threw herself into Elspeth'e arms and burst into a storm of weeping.

Now, this was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened in Elspeth's experience, and it seemed to presage such woe as she had not dreamed of.

For the Mackinnons were a proud and self-contained race, and to make parade of their feelings was impossible for them. It may be that they, as a family, had erred in repressing them too much. There had been but three in the family--the third being an elder sister who had married young and died in childbed. Her death was the first sorrow that had helped to take the spring out of the old man's heart. He had never, perhaps, been quite just to Isla, because he had loved his first-born best.

"There, there, my lammie! God forpid that you should cry your heart oot like that. Put there--it will do ye good! Oh, the man that invented the post hass a heap to answer for. In the old days the trouble had plown ower, whatefer, afore we got wind of it, especially when it happened in foreign parts. What is he sayin' till it the day, my dear? It is not impident curiosity that pids me ask, put I canna pear to see ye like this."

It was all spoken in a crooning voice which had the effect of soothing the overcharged heart of the girl. That outburst of natural tears was the very best thing which could have happened to her. Thus relieved, her heart quickly recovered its strength. She drew back, smiling weakly, begged to be forgiven for such an exhibition, and fumbled inside her blouse for the missive that had wrought such woe.

She smoothed it out and, for the moment, she thought to pass it over to her faithful friend, who, though no scholar, would have had no difficulty in reading that big, sprawling, crude schoolboy writing. But again the shame of it overcame the girl, and sitting down on the edge of a chair, she lifted her wet eyes to Elspeth's face and said mournfully:--

"It's the deluge, Eppie. I've always said it would come, and it is here."

"What hass happened? Pe pleased to tell it quickly, Miss Isla, for I nefer wass a good hand at waitin'."

"Malcolm has been dismissed from the Army, and he is coming home. He has sailed by now," she added, referring to the second page of the letter, "and his ship, the 'Jumna,' will arrive in about three weeks. It's a slow boat, but inside a month he'll be at Achree."

Elspeth bit her lip, and her hands worked nervously in front of her apron.

"For the good God's sake, Miss Isla, what are we to do with him here?"

"That's what I want to know. It will kill my father. He must never