The jury seem to have thought some victim should be offered for the public satisfaction, and that no injustice would be done to John Meldrum in assigning him as a sacrifice, seeing that he had done quite enough to deserve hanging, even if he had no hand in the burning of Frendraught Castle. With the execution of Meldrum, all further proceedings in the case ceased; but suspicion and animosity rankled long in the House of Huntly against Frendraught. The origin of the fire still remains a mystery. TWO DAYS IN A LIFETIME. A STORY IN EIGHT CHAPTERS. CHAPTER IV. Captain Bowood had spoken truly. Lady Dimsdale and Mr Boyd were sauntering slowly in the direction of the house, deep in conversation, and quite unaware that they were being watched from a little distance by the woman in black whom Mrs Bowood had taken to be an applicant for the post of French governess. Oscar Boyd was a tall, well-built man, verging towards his fortieth year. His complexion was deeply imbrowned by years of tropical sunshine. He had a silky chestnut beard and moustache, and hair of the same colour, which, however, was no longer so plentiful as it once had been. He had clear, frank-looking eyes, a firm-set mouth, and a face which gave you the impression of a man who was at once both thoughtful and shrewd. It was one of those kindly yet resolute faces which seem to invite confidence, but would never betray it. Lady Dimsdale brought quite a heap of flowers into the room. There was a large shallow vase on the centre table, which it was her intention to fill with her floral spoils. ‘You look as cool as if this were December instead of June,’ she said. ‘I have been used to much hotter suns than that of England.’ ‘I hardly knew you again at first—not till I heard you speak.’ ‘Fifteen years are a long time.’ ‘Yet already it seems to me as if I should have known you anywhere. You are different, and yet the same.’ ‘When I arrived last evening, I did not know that you were here. I heard your voice before I saw you, and the fifteen years seemed to vanish like a dream.’ ‘It seems to me like a dream when I go back in memory to those old days at the vicarage, and call to mind all that happened there.’ ‘Do you ever think of that evening when you and I parted?’ ‘I have not forgotten it,’ answered Lady Dimsdale in a low voice. ‘How little we thought that we should not meet again for so long a time!’ ‘How little we foresaw all that would happen to us in the interval!’ ‘If that telegram had arrived ten minutes later, how different our lots in life might have been!’ ‘Life seems made up of Ifs and Buts,’ she answered with a little sigh. ‘That evening! The scent of new-mown hay was in the air.’ ‘The clock in the old church tower had just struck seven.’ ‘Under the hill, a nightingale was singing.’ ‘Far off, we heard the murmur of the tide.’ ‘Fido lay basking among fallen rose-leaves on the terrace.’